Apple/ Eli Lilly’s bet: Wearable and mobile consumer devices may well help us detect cognitive impairment and dementia

By SharpBrains | September 16, 2019

__________ Apple, Eli Lil­ly research whether devices can detect demen­tia signs (Health­care Dive): “Demen­tia, which affects rough­ly 47 mil­lion peo­ple across the globe, costs $1 tril­lion world­wide, accord­ing to the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion. Ear­ly test­ing for the con­di­tion is spo­radic and, when con­duct­ed, it’s often not sen­si­tive enough to detect ear­ly stages of men­tal decline, creating…

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Study: Practice effect due to repeated testing can delay detection of cognitive impairment and dementia

By SharpBrains | July 30, 2018

___ Prac­tice Imper­fect: Repeat­ed Cog­ni­tive Test­ing Can Obscure Ear­ly Signs of Demen­tia (UC San Diego Health press release): “Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD) is a pro­gres­sive, neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive con­di­tion that often begins with mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment or MCI, mak­ing ear­ly and repeat­ed assess­ments of cog­ni­tive change cru­cial to diag­no­sis and treat­ment. But in a paper pub­lished online in…

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Study: Computerized cognitive training may help patients with mild cognitive impairment (less so once diagnosed with dementia)

By SharpBrains | November 17, 2016

Brain Gain: Com­put­er­ized Train­ing May Boost Cog­ni­tion in MCI (Med­scape): “Com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing (CCT) for patients with mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment (MCI) appears to have a ben­e­fi­cial effect on glob­al cog­ni­tion, mem­o­ry, and atten­tion and improves psy­choso­cial func­tion­ing, includ­ing depres­sive symptoms, 

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Update: To improve sleep, combine general sleep hygiene with mindful and cognitive techniques

By SharpBrains | May 26, 2016 |

———- Had a good night’s sleep?  We hope you did, so you can ful­ly enjoy all the fas­ci­nat­ing arti­cles and brain teasers in the new edi­tion of Sharp­Brains’ eNewslet­ter…includ­ing excel­lent advice on how to com­bine gen­er­al sleep hygiene with mind­ful and cog­ni­tive tech­niques, and a book give­away.  Hap­py read­ing! New think­ing: For a good night’s rest,…

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Status quo is not enough: Common tests for Mild Cognitive Impairment lack both sensitivity and specificity

By SharpBrains | May 25, 2016

Cur­rent screen­ing meth­ods miss wor­ri­some num­ber of per­sons with mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment (Sci­enceDai­ly): “Mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment (MCI) is a slight but notice­able and mea­sur­able decline in cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties, such as remem­ber­ing names or a list of items. While changes may not be severe enough to dis­rupt dai­ly life, a clin­i­cal diagnosis 

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