Sudoku

Why financial analysts should grab a paint brush and a canvas (and artists do more math)

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Which Brain Exer­cis­es Improve Mem­o­ry Best? (Read­er’s Digest):

“The exer­cis­es you do to keep your mind sharp may not be enough to improve mem­o­ry over time, but new research from the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness reveals bet­ter ways to boost your brain health…If you can breeze through the Sun­day puz­zle, you are not doing your mind any favors. That’s because the key to a vibrant, healthy brain includes chal­lenge and novelty…keep your brain fit with new activ­i­ties that test var­i­ous skills; a finan­cial ana­lyst may want to grab a paint brush and a can­vas, for exam­ple. Even play­ing dif­fer­ent types of puzzles–a cross­word today, Sudoku tomorrow–is bet­ter than doing the same type over and over again.”

Learn more:

From crosswords and sudoku to individualized brain training

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brainsMind Games? Gyms For The Brain Avail­able Online (Investor’s Busi­ness Daily):

Cognitive Training & Brain Teasers Can Increase Openness Among Older Adults

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Brain Teasers Make Seniors More Open to New Ven­tures (med­page today):

- ” A cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­gram that includ­ed Sudoku and cross­word puz­zles made old­er adults more open to new expe­ri­ences, accord­ing to a pre­lim­i­nary study.”

- “Old­er adults under­go changes in per­son­al­i­ty, includ­ing shifts in open­ness or will­ing­ness to seek out new and cog­ni­tive­ly chal­leng­ing expe­ri­ences. A num­ber of inter­ven­tions have been designed to enrich cog­ni­tive func­tion­ing in old­er adults, but lit­tle has been done to devel­op open­ness, the authors explained.” [Read more…] about Cog­ni­tive Train­ing & Brain Teasers Can Increase Open­ness Among Old­er Adults

Cars don’t work because they don’t fly

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Study Ques­tions Effec­tive­ness Of $80 Mil­lion Per Year ‘Brain Exer­cise Prod­ucts Indus­try for Elder­ly (Sci­ence Daily)

- “There is much research on the ben­e­fits of cog­ni­tive reha­bil­i­ta­tion strate­gies among elder­ly who already expe­ri­ence mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment (MCI) or Alzheimer’s dis­ease, as well as on the pos­i­tive impact of phys­i­cal exer­cise. The researchers, how­ev­er, want­ed to eval­u­ate cur­rent research that would focus on the impact of cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions in the healthy elder­ly population.”

- “…they con­clud­ed that there was no evi­dence indi­cat­ing that struc­tured cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tion pro­grams had an impact on the pro­gres­sion of demen­tia in the healthy elder­ly population”

Com­ment:  we have not reviewed the analy­sis yet, so can­not com­ment in depth. How­ev­er, just from the press release, we see a few poten­tial prob­lems in how the study was framed, reduc­ing its prac­ti­cal val­ue: [Read more…] about Cars don’t work because they don’t fly

Wellness Coaching for Brain Health and Fitness

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We just received this quote of how a major health sys­tem is using our Brain Fit­ness Mar­ket Report:

“At Sut­ter Health Part­ners we rec­og­nize the impor­tance of brain health and how much the health of the brain and the body are inter­de­pen­dent.  The mar­ket report helped us fur­ther tar­get our coach­ing efforts to inte­grate brain fit­ness and upgrade our entire coach­ing plat­form.  It is easy to read and gives you the indus­try per­spec­tive in a thor­ough yet con­cise man­ner.  I high­ly rec­om­mend it!”

– Mar­garet Sabin, CEO of Sut­ter Health Part­ners and VP, New Prod­uct Devel­op­ment, at Sut­ter Health.

You may won­der, “what is the link between  well­ness coach­ing and brain fitness”?

In prac­tice, good health and well­ness coach­es pro­vide excel­lent brain health advice, giv­en that the areas they focus on (nutri­tion, phys­i­cal exer­cise, stress man­age­ment) do play an impor­tant role in main­tain­ing our brains in top shape.

Addi­tion­al­ly, pio­neers  such as Sut­ter Health Part­ners are adding a Brain “lens” to their work. How?

First, by bet­ter under­stand­ing and explain­ing the brain ben­e­fits of what they already do, in order to pro­vide addi­tion­al moti­va­tion to stick with healthy behav­iors. For exam­ple, most peo­ple will be able to recite mul­ti­ple ben­e­fits of mod­er­ate car­dio­vas­cu­lar exer­cise. But how many know  that it can also con­tribute to neu­ro­ge­n­e­sis ‑the cre­ation of new neu­rons — in adult brains?

Sec­ond, by start­ing to offer brain fit­ness guide­lines to clients who want too go beyond cross­word puz­zles and sudoku.

I had a great train­ing ses­sion with a num­ber of Sut­ter Health coach­es last week — let me sum­ma­rize some of the main points we cov­ered. [Read more…] about Well­ness Coach­ing for Brain Health and Fitness

Lee Woodruff: the Bob Woodruff Foundation, and You, can help Traumatic Brain Injury survivors

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You have may have seen a few weeks ago the inter­view between for­mer US pres­i­den­tial con­tender John Edwards and reporter Bob Woodruff. All the result­ing media cov­er­age cen­tered on Edwards’ dec­la­ra­tions. How­ev­er, there is some­thing much more remark­able that sur­faced at that inter­view: Bob Woodruff’s spec­tac­u­lar recovery.

This is the same reporter who suf­fered a severe trau­mat­ic brain injury when a road­side In an Instant - Bob and Lee Woodruffbomb det­o­nat­ed next to his vehi­cle in Jan­u­ary 29th 2006 as he was cov­er­ing news devel­op­ments in Iraq.

Today we are for­tu­nate to inter­view Lee Woodruff, Bob’s wife and pil­lar through­out his recov­ery. Lee and Bob co-wrote the fan­tas­tic book In an Instant: A Fam­i­ly’s Jour­ney of Love and Heal­ing.

Alvaro Fer­nan­dez: Lee, many thanks for your time. I was amazed read­ing your book, where you share your jour­ney, and then watch­ing Bob inter­view John Edwards, the best dis­play I can imag­ine of his recov­ery. Can you please sum­ma­rize for us what Bob ‑and you- went through since Jan­u­ary 2006?

Lee Woodruff: As you know, Bob suf­fered a life-threat­en­ing trau­mat­ic brain injury in Iraq. He was prompt­ly tak­en under mil­i­tary care and under­went a series of surg­eries for head injuries, with a joint Army & Air Force neu­ro­sur­gi­cal team in Iraq, in a US Army Med­ical Com­mand hos­pi­tal in Ger­many, and at Bethes­da Naval Hos­pi­tal, back here in the US.

Dur­ing this time, span­ning around 4 months, he spent 37 days in coma, and his skull had to be sur­gi­cal­ly rebuilt. The cog­ni­tive reha­bil­i­ta­tion process start­ed then, at a med­ical facil­i­ty clos­er home.

Can you please explain what kind of cog­ni­tive rehab Bob has gone though-both in a for­mal way, with a ther­a­pist, and infor­mal­ly, on his own?

The first thing I’d like to say is that rehab is a long process. Doc­tors told me that Bob, despite the sever­i­ty of his injuries, had bet­ter chances to recov­er than oth­er vic­tims, because of the reserve of neu­rons and con­nec­tions he had built thanks to [Read more…] about Lee Woodruff: the Bob Woodruff Foun­da­tion, and You, can help Trau­mat­ic Brain Injury survivors