keep-brain-sharp

From Lifespan to Healthspan: Brain Scientists Tap Into The Secrets Of Living Well Longer

by

Yolan­da Esparza (right) and Mary Lyons (left) con­tin­ue their 2‑mile group trail ride orig­i­nat­ing from the Con­ley-Guer­rero Senior Activ­i­ty Cen­ter in Austin, Texas, on Dec. 3, 2019. (Julia Robin­son for KHN)

_____

AUSTIN, Texas — Retired state employ­ees Vick­ey Ben­ford, 63, and Joan Cald­well, 61, are Gold­en Rollers, a group of the over-50 set that gets out on assort­ed bikes — includ­ing trikes for adults they call “three wheels of awe­some” — for an hour of trail rid­ing and camaraderie.

“I love to exer­cise, and I like to stay fit,” said Cald­well, who tried out a recum­bent bike, a low-impact option that can be eas­i­er on the back. “It keeps me young.” [Read more…] about From Lifes­pan to Healthspan: Brain Sci­en­tists Tap Into The Secrets Of Liv­ing Well Longer

Brain Fitness Survey: We Need More Brain Awareness Weeks!

by

If you sub­scribe to our month­ly newslet­ter, you may remem­ber we ran a sur­vey in Jan­u­ary. Well, the response rate and the qual­i­ty of the respons­es were noth­ing short of spec­tac­u­lar, in many dimen­sions. The respons­es from over 2,000 par­tic­i­pants (out of 21,000 sub­scribers) rein­force the need for pub­lic aware­ness ini­tia­tives and qual­i­ty infor­ma­tion to help eval­u­ate and nav­i­gate prod­uct claims.

I have been pre­sent­ing the results from one of the ques­tions (see below), yes­ter­day at the ASA/ NCOA (Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging) event, today at IHRSA (Inter­na­tion­al Health, Rac­quet and Sports­club Asso­ci­a­tion), as part of more com­pre­hen­sive pre­sen­ta­tions of what is going on in the brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive health field.

An obvi­ous impli­ca­tion for the sur­vey result rein­forces the need for brain-relat­ed pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns such as the ongo­ing Brain Aware­ness Week. Every year, land­mark research find­ings open new oppor­tu­ni­ties to help main­tain life­long cog­ni­tive health and brain fit­ness. The oppor­tu­ni­ty is immense — but we will need to ensure the mar­ket­place matures in a ratio­nal and sus­tain­able man­ner, help­ing con­sumers and pro­fes­sion­als sep­a­rate hope from hype and make informed decisions.

Robin Klaus, Chair­man of Club One Fit­ness Cen­ters (the com­pa­ny is a client, he is an advi­sor), just gave us a nice quote say­ing that “as our pop­u­la­tion ages the fields of phys­i­cal fit­ness and brain fit­ness will nat­u­ral­ly merge and, as this hap­pens, a whole new field of val­ued added ser­vices will emerge for our mem­bers. High qual­i­ty infor­ma­tion­al resources such as Sharp­Brains’ are cru­cial to the suc­cess of this merger.”

The Sur­vey: Results to Key Question

Asked, “What is the most impor­tant prob­lem you see in the brain fit­ness field and how do you think it can be solved?” respon­dents iden­ti­fied the fol­low­ing six prob­lems in rank order:

#1: Pub­lic Aware­ness (39%)
— “Get­ting peo­ple to under­stand that hered­i­ty alone does not decide brain functioning.”
— “An expec­tant pub­lic will first want to believe that a “mir­a­cle” drug is to be soon avail­able (to pre­vent Alzheimer’s Disease).”

#2: Nav­i­gat­ing Claims (21%)
- “How to sep­a­rate mar­ket­ing hype from stuff that real­ly works?”
— “The lack of stan­dards and clear def­i­n­i­tions is very con­fus­ing, and makes a lot of peo­ple sceptical.”

#3: Research (15%)
— “Deter­min­ing what activ­i­ties are most ben­e­fi­cial to [Read more…] about Brain Fit­ness Sur­vey: We Need More Brain Aware­ness Weeks!