• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

Spanish
sb-logo-with-brain
  • Resources
    • Monthly eNewsletter
    • Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle
    • The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness
    • How to evaluate brain training claims
    • Resources at a Glance
  • Brain Teasers
    • Top 25 Brain Teasers & Games for Teens and Adults
    • Brain Teasers for each Cognitive Ability
    • More Mind Teasers & Games for Adults of any Age
  • Virtual Summits
    • 2019 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • Speaker Roster
    • Brainnovations Pitch Contest
    • 2017 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2016 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2015 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
    • 2014 SharpBrains Virtual Summit
  • Report: Pervasive Neurotechnology
  • Report: Digital Brain Health
  • About
    • Mission & Team
    • Endorsements
    • Public Speaking
    • In the News
    • Contact Us

Journal-of-the-American-Medical-Association

To screen, or not to screen (for dementia), that is still the question

March 11, 2020 by Judith Graham @ Kaiser Health News

A lead­ing group of med­ical experts on Tues­day declined to endorse cog­ni­tive screen­ing for old­er adults, fuel­ing a debate that has sim­mered for years.

The U.S. Pre­ven­tive Ser­vices Task Force said it could nei­ther rec­om­mend nor oppose cog­ni­tive screen­ing, cit­ing insuf­fi­cient sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence of the practice’s ben­e­fits and harms and call­ing for fur­ther studies.

The task force’s work informs poli­cies set by Medicare and pri­vate insur­ers. Its rec­om­men­da­tions, an accom­pa­ny­ing sci­en­tif­ic state­ment and two edi­to­ri­als were pub­lished Tues­day in the Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Med­ical Association.

The task force’s new posi­tion comes as con­cern mounts over a ris­ing tide of old­er adults with Alzheimer’s dis­ease and [Read more…] about To screen, or not to screen (for demen­tia), that is still the question

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health Tagged With: Alzheimer’s Disease, Annual Wellness Visit, cognition, cognitive decline, cognitive-abilities, Cognitive-impairment, cognitive-screening, dementia, geriatric psychiatrists, geriatricians, JAMA, Journal-of-the-American-Medical-Association, Kaiser Health News, Medicare, neurologists, neuropsychologists, selective screening, U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, universal screening

Brain Health Business Grows With Research and Demand

May 20, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

I wrote this arti­cle for the March/ April edi­tion of the pub­li­ca­tion Aging Today, pub­lished by the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging, and received per­mis­sion to repro­duce it here.

—————-

In recent years, most pro­fes­sion­als in aging have become aware of the grow­ing sci­en­tif­ic evi­dence show­ing that human brains retain the abil­i­ty to gen­er­ate neu­rons and change over a life­time, dis­cov­er­ies that have bro­ken the sci­en­tif­ic par­a­digm preva­lent dur­ing the 20th cen­tu­ry. Fur­ther­more, neu­roimag­ing and cog­ni­tive train­ing stud­ies are show­ing how well-direct­ed exer­cise presents peo­ple major oppor­tu­ni­ties for healthy brain aging.

How can peo­ple use emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies to keep their brains healthy and pro­duc­tive as long as pos­si­ble? An emerg­ing mar­ket for brain health– $225 mil­lion mar­ket in 2007, in the Unit­ed States alone, of which con­sumers account for $80 million–is try­ing to address that ques­tion in a way that com­ple­ments oth­er impor­tant more tra­di­tion­al pil­lars (and mul­ti-bil­lion indus­tries) of brain health, such as phys­i­cal exer­cise, bal­anced diet, stress man­age­ment (stress has been shown to actu­al­ly kill neu­rons and reduce the rate of cre­ation of new ones) and over­all men­tal stim­u­la­tion and life­long learning.

2007 AN ACTIVE YEAR

A series of impor­tant events took place in 2007, a sem­i­nal year for the brain health field, begin­ning in Jan­u­ary when many main­stream media pub­li­ca­tions, such as Time Mag­a­zine and CBS News, start­ed to pub­lish major sto­ries on neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and brain exer­cise. This media cov­er­age fol­lowed the pub­li­ca­tion of the long-await­ed results from nation­al clin­i­cal tri­als show­ing that sig­nif­i­cant per­cent­ages of the par­tic­i­pants age 65 and old­er who trained for five weeks improved their mem­o­ry, rea­son­ing and infor­ma­tion-pro­cess­ing speed. Find­ings from the Advanced Cog­ni­tive Train­ing for Inde­pen­dent and Vital Elder­ly (ACTIVE) Study appeared in the Jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion (Dec. 20, 2006) and revealed that even after five years, par­tic­i­pants in the ACTIVE com­put­er-based pro­gram showed less of a decline in infor­ma­tion-pro­cess­ing skills than those in a con­trol group that received no cog­ni­tive training.

[Read more…] about Brain Health Busi­ness Grows With Research and Demand

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: Aging-Today, American-Society-on-Aging, brain-age, brain-fitness-coaches, Brain-health, Brain-Resource-Company, Brain-Training, Centers-for-Disease-Control, cognitive-ability, cognitive-assessments, cognitive-therapy, Cognitive-Training, corporate-wellness, cure-Alzheimer’s, for-example, generate-neurons, healthy-brain-aging, information-processing, insurance, Journal-of-the-American-Medical-Association, Lifelong-learning, meditation, mental-stimulation, neuroplasticity, Nicole-Kidman, Nintendo-Brain-Age, novel-problem-solving, nursing-homes, Nutrition, pattern-recognition-and-emotional-self-regulation;-some-decline, PBS, Physical-Exercise, Posit-Science, retirement-communities, speed-of-processing, stress-management, the-brain-fitness-program, Working-memory

Improving Driving Skills and Brain Functioning- Interview with ACTIVE’s Jerri Edwards

February 4, 2008 by Alvaro Fernandez

Jerri Edwards- Active trialToday we are for­tu­nate to inter­view Dr. Jer­ri Edwards, an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at Uni­ver­si­ty of South Flori­da’s School of Aging Stud­ies and Co-Inves­ti­ga­tor of the influ­en­cial ACTIVE study. Dr. Edwards was trained by Dr. Kar­lene K. Ball, and her research is aimed toward dis­cov­er­ing how cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties can be main­tained and even enhanced with advanc­ing age.

Main focus of research

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez: Please explain to our read­ers your main research areas 

Jer­ri Edwards: I am par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in how cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions may help old­er adults to avoid or at least delay func­tion­al dif­fi­cul­ties and there­by main­tain their inde­pen­dence longer. Much of my work has focused on the func­tion­al abil­i­ty of dri­ving includ­ing assess­ing dri­ving fit­ness among old­er adults and reme­di­a­tion of cog­ni­tive decline that results in dri­ving difficulties.

Some research ques­tions that inter­est me include, how can we main­tain health­i­er lives longer? How can train­ing improve cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, both to improve those abil­i­ties and also to slow-down, or delay, cog­ni­tive decline? The spe­cif­ic cog­ni­tive abil­i­ty that I have stud­ied the most is pro­cess­ing speed, which is one of the cog­ni­tive skills that decline ear­ly on as we age.

ACTIVE results

Can you explain what cog­ni­tive pro­cess­ing speed is, and why it is rel­e­vant to our dai­ly lives? 

Pro­cess­ing speed is men­tal quick­ness. Just like a com­put­er with a 486 proces­sor can do a lot of the same things as a com­put­er with a Pen­tium 4 proces­sor, but it takes much longer, our minds tend to slow down with age as com­pared to when we were younger. We can do the same tasks, but it takes more time. Quick speed of pro­cess­ing is impor­tant for [Read more…] about Improv­ing Dri­ving Skills and Brain Func­tion­ing- Inter­view with ACTIVE’s Jer­ri Edwards

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: AARP, ACTIVE-study, ACTIVE-trial, aging-workforce, Alzheimers, assess-driving-fitness, brain-functioning, Brain-Training, cognitive-decline, cognitive-interventions, Cognitive-Training, Corporate-Training, crosswords, Decision-making, driving-skills, Human-Factors, insurance-companies, Jerri-Edwards, Journal-of-the-American-Medical-Association, JustScience-2008, Karlene-Ball, maintain-independence, memory-techniques, Memory-Training, mental-exercise, mental-quickness, Parkinsons, processing-speed-cognitive-abilities, reasoning-skills, useful-field-of-view, visual-attention

Customer Satisfaction Survey/ Tech Museum Awards

April 5, 2007 by Alvaro Fernandez

We usu­al­ly spend more time in this blog talk­ing about brain fit­ness sci­ence, pro­grams and trends than talk­ing about peo­ple. Today we are going to change that, since we have been receiv­ing great feed­back from a num­ber of sources. While we still need to improve a lot, we can start to see the results of what we do in our “brain fit­ness cen­ter”. And we could­n’t be hap­pi­er about the nom­i­na­tion this week of Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg and myself, as Sharp­Brains cofounders, for The Tech Muse­um Awards — Tech­nol­o­gy Ben­e­fit­ing Human­i­ty, in the Health category.

I. Anony­mous Feed­back from an online sur­vey of our online store cus­tomers

  • 58% respon­dents are Very Sat­is­fied, and 42% Sat­is­fied, with the prod­ucts and ser­vices they chose. I promise that there were more options (Dis­sat­is­fied, Very Dissatisfied)
  • “As a trad­er, I real­ly need to sus­tain atten­tion for long peri­ods. Your pro­gram (here) has been eye-open­ing and very helpful.”
  • “I LOVE the pro­gram! It is fun, chal­lenges me and gives me hope for improv­ing in the areas where I have lim­i­ta­tions. Staff sup­port & edu­ca­tion­al infor­ma­tion has been great. It is very impor­tant to be able to talk to some­one about the ques­tions or process prob­lems that we experience…your mem­ber on-line site gives us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to get answers & need­ed sup­port. Thanks for all you are doing. My hus­band and I love get­ting feed­back about our progress…it is a very pos­i­tive experience!”
  • “Keep devel­op­ing pro­grams so when we fin­ish doing the Mind­Fit (here) pro­gram there will be anoth­er one to build upon the first! I am impressed at how well your pro­grams are indi­vid­u­al­ized. Good Job to all involved!”
  • “Good, I enjoy the games (here) and I can tell a dif­fer­ence in my mem­o­ry and over­all awareness.”

II. Feed­back about our Stress Man­age­ment for Peak Per­for­mance work­shop (here)

  • Accen­ture: 46 per­cent of sur­vey respon­dents Strong­ly Agreed that they “gained prac­ti­cal skills and knowl­edge they could start using immediately.” 69 per­cent Strong­ly Agreed [Read more…] about Cus­tomer Sat­is­fac­tion Survey/ Tech Muse­um Awards

Share this:

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Print
  • More
  • Share on Tumblr
  • Pock­et

Filed Under: Brain/ Mental Health, Education & Lifelong Learning, Technology & Innovation Tagged With: baba-shiv, brain-fitness-website, brett-steenbarger, Dawkins, development, hippocampus, Journal-of-the-American-Medical-Association, Karlene-Ball, malleable, Martin-Seligman, mental-exercise, Parkinsons, posit-science-pbs, Serious-Games, stress-hormones

Primary Sidebar

Top Articles on Brain Health and Neuroplasticity

  1. Can you grow your hippocampus? Yes. Here’s how, and why it matters
  2. How learning changes your brain
  3. To harness neuroplasticity, start with enthusiasm
  4. Three ways to protect your mental health during –and after– COVID-19
  5. Why you turn down the radio when you're lost
  6. Solving the Brain Fitness Puzzle Is the Key to Self-Empowered Aging
  7. Ten neu­rotech­nolo­gies about to trans­form brain enhance­ment & health
  8. Five reasons the future of brain enhancement is digital, pervasive and (hopefully) bright
  9. What Educators and Parents Should Know About Neuroplasticity and Dance
  10. The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains
  11. Six tips to build resilience and prevent brain-damaging stress
  12. Can brain training work? Yes, if it meets these 5 conditions
  13. What are cognitive abilities and how to boost them?
  14. Eight Tips To Remember What You Read
  15. Twenty Must-Know Facts to Harness Neuroplasticity and Improve Brain Health

Top 10 Brain Teasers and Illusions

  1. You think you know the colors? Try the Stroop Test
  2. Check out this brief attention experiment
  3. Test your stress level
  4. Guess: Are there more brain connections or leaves in the Amazon?
  5. Quick brain teasers to flex two key men­tal mus­cles
  6. Count the Fs in this sentence
  7. Can you iden­tify Apple’s logo?
  8. Ten classic optical illu­sions to trick your mind
  9. What do you see?
  10. Fun Mental Rotation challenge
  • Check our Top 25 Brain Teasers, Games and Illusions

Join 35,344 readers exploring, at no cost, the latest in neuroplasticity and brain health.

By subscribing you agree to receive our free, monthly eNewsletter. We don't rent or sell emails collected, and you may unsubscribe at any time.

IMPORTANT: Please check your inbox or spam folder in a couple minutes and confirm your subscription.

Get In Touch!

Contact Us

660 4th Street, Suite 205,
San Francisco, CA 94107 USA

About Us

SharpBrains is an independent market research firm tracking health and performance applications of brain science. We prepare general and tailored market reports, publish consumer guides, produce an annual global and virtual conference, and provide strategic advisory services.

© 2022 SharpBrains. All Rights Reserved - Privacy Policy