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Why tech­nol­o­gy — not med­ica­tion — is the future of treat­ing old­er adults with depres­sion (McKnight’s Long-term Care News):

“The go-to treat­ment for many cas­es of depres­sion is med­ica­tion.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, this treat­ment option can cause as many issues as the prob­lem it is try­ing to solve. Anti­de­pres­sants can put res­i­dents at greater risk of falls, neg­a­tive health com­pli­ca­tions and oth­er poor con­di­tions. Some stud­ies indi­cate that anti­de­pres­sants may not be effec­tive for most old­er Amer­i­cans. Read the rest of this entry »

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Why you shouldn’t both­er with mem­o­ry or brain health sup­ple­ments (Con­sumer Reports):

“The signs of mem­o­ry loss can be bewil­der­ing and scary: mis­placed keys, a for­got­ten street name, that task you sud­den­ly can’t remem­ber. It’s no won­der that, accord­ing to the Nutri­tion Busi­ness Jour­nal, sales of sup­ple­ments tout­ed as mem­o­ry boost­ers near­ly dou­bled between 2006 and 2015.

But accord­ing to a review of stud­ies pub­lished in Decem­ber, there’s vir­tu­al­ly no good evi­dence that such prod­ucts can pre­vent or delay mem­o­ry laps­es, mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment or demen­tia in old­er adults Read the rest of this entry »

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A 14-Year-Old Made An App To Help Alzheimer’s Patients Rec­og­nize Their Loved Ones (Fast Com­pa­ny):

“When Emma Yang was 7 or 8 years old, her grand­moth­er became increas­ing­ly for­get­ful. Over the next few years, those mem­o­ry prob­lems, caused by ear­ly Alzheimer’s dis­ease, wors­ened. Yang, who learned to code at an ear­ly age, decid­ed to cre­ate an app to help Read the rest of this entry »

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An easy, low cost, nat­ur­al prac­tice can help us boost our brain pow­er, be health­i­er and more spir­i­tu­al­ly attuned as we age, and improve our qual­i­ty of life and hap­pi­ness. It could also reduce some of the stag­ger­ing health care costs seen today.

Curi­ous about what that prac­tice is? Read the rest of this entry »

–An exam­ple of a speed-of-pro­cess­ing task. Cour­tesy of Posit Sci­ence

Play on! In a first, brain train­ing cuts risk of demen­tia 10 years lat­er (STAT News):

“For the first time ever, researchers have man­aged to reduce people’s risk for demen­tia — not through a med­i­cine, spe­cial diet, or exer­cise, but by hav­ing healthy old­er adults play a com­put­er-based brain-train­ing game. Read the rest of this entry »