Brain-fitness plan can improve mem­ory (Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald), reports on the recent endorse­ment of Posit Science’s pro­grams (Posit Sci­ence Pro­gram Clas­sic, focused on audi­tory pro­cess­ing train­ing, and Posit Sci­ence Cor­tex^™ with InSight^™, on visual pro­cess­ing). Quotes:

- “While the group says it has con­cerns about endors­ing a com­mer­cial prod­uct sell­ing for almost $400, it is con­fi­dent the ben­e­fits to the com­mu­nity will be wide-ranging.”

- “Likely pur­chasers of the pro­gram include nurs­ing homes, libraries and tele­cen­tres and groups sup­port­ing and ser­vic­ing demen­tia sufferers.”

- “This is core busi­ness for us … one of our clear strate­gic objec­tives is to assist the com­mu­nity to reduce the risk of devel­op­ing demen­tia,” Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia strate­gic direc­tions gen­eral man­ager David Grib­ble said in Perth on Friday.

- “(It is) one of the seven aspects of lifestyle that all of the research shows will reduce risk is stay­ing men­tally active.”

Com­ment: Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia is adopt­ing a more aggres­sive atti­tude than peers in other coun­tries (such as the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion here in the US). Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia first endorsed Nin­tendo Brain Age (also called Nin­tendo Brain Train­ing) and now the Posit Sci­ence pro­grams (both Posit Sci­ence Pro­gram Clas­sic and Posit Sci­ence Cor­tex^™ with InSight^™.

This brings to sur­face a gen­uine pub­lic health dilemma: do you, as an asso­ci­a­tion, pro­mote pro­grams before they have been shown to have long-term effects on Alzheimer’s pro­gres­sion and preva­lence, or do you wait until you have “per­fect” research, and then per­haps lose 10–20-30 years or use­ful con­tri­bu­tion to thousands/ mil­lions of brain’s Cog­ni­tive Reserves? A tough judg­ment call.

In my view, it may well be worth to offer inter­ven­tions that are free of side effects (apart from time and money invested) as long as Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia does a seri­ous job of inde­pen­dently mea­sur­ing the cog­ni­tive ben­e­fits that may be brought by the pro­grams. For exam­ple, Alzheimer’s Aus­tralia could offer free or reduced-cost online cog­ni­tive assess­ments to the pub­lic at large, and to peo­ple buy­ing the Posit Sci­ence pro­grams (and the Nin­tendo ones), to enable pretty fas­ci­nat­ing ongo­ing com­par­a­tive research.

Per­haps time to call lead­ing Aus­tralian cog­ni­tive assess­ment com­pa­nies such as Brain Resource and CogState?

Rel­e­vant inter­views with scientists:

- Build Your Cog­ni­tive Reserve-Yaakov Stern.

- Art Kramer on Why We Need Walk­ing Book Clubs.

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

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