• Pre-Summit workshops: May 31st-June 1st, 2012
• Summit: June 7-8th, 2012
• Expo Week: June 12-14th, 2012

17 Confirmed Summit Speakers include:

This is an excellent (and free) “big picture” eBook published by the World Economic Forum to contextualize why, and how, our societies, policies and systems will need updating in order to better manage global population ageing.

EBook description: Global ageing, in developed and developing countries alike, will dramatically alter the way that societies and economies work. The issues include how individuals find fulfilment, at what age they retire, and their quality of life once they do retire; how governments devise social contracts to provide financial security; how the older and younger generations interact as they divide up the economic pie; how businesses staff their jobs to compensate in many countries for shrinking workforces; and how health systems respond to the altered needs of those living longer.

To download eBook, Click Here (opens PDF in new window).

A previous paper on this topic was published in journal Global Policy last year, titled The Global Agenda Council on the Ageing Society: Policy Principles.

Description: In 2008, the World Economic Forum (WEF) created the Global Agenda Councils – an amalgamation of scientists, public policy makers, academics, physicians and business leaders with the task of devising transformational innovation in global governance for the purpose of advancing knowledge and collaboratively developing solutions for the most crucial issues facing humanity. Because of its overarching effect on many aspects of society, a Council was created to address global issues associated with an ageing society. The Councils have the task of challenging prevailing assumptions, monitoring trends, proposing solutions, devising strategies, making public policy proposals and evaluating the effectiveness of actions using measurable benchmarks. This report is the first product of the WEF’s Council on the Ageing Society – our goal is to lay down the initial principles that will guide our actions in the coming years.

To download paper, Click Here (opens PDF in new window).

Dear Council Members,

First of all, have an excellent 2012. Here you have a few important updates, including our first conference call in 2012:

1) Upcoming Council Call to discuss 2011 SharpBrains Summit’s final meeting report and priorities for 2012 SharpBrains Summit.

• Confirmed Speakers: Alvaro Fernandez (SharpBrains), Margaret Morris and Muki Hansteen-Izora (Intel Corporation), Joshua Steinerman (ProGevity Neuroscience, CRI Worldwide).
• To RSVP and access call-in details, click on Council’s Monthly Calls. The call will be recorded, so if you can’t participate live you’ll be able to listen to it afterwards.

3) We encourage you to submit guest posts to SharpBrains.com and help educate/ inform a growing audience; please let me know if you have any questions about this. To learn more, click on How to Sub­mit a Guest Post to SharpBrains.com.

4) Also, please check out our new online course, designed for the college-educated general public: How to Be Your Own Brain Fit­ness Coach in 2012 (March 2012). It may be a bit introductory for you given your access to professional-grade SharpBrains materials, but feel free to participate and to spread the word with others. We already have 75+ high-caliber and very motivated registered learners in over 10 countries.

Looking forward to talking to a good number of you next Tuesday!

• “Some people are much better than their peers at delaying age-related declines in memory and calculating speed. What researchers want to know is why. Why does your 70-year-old neighbor score half her age on a memory test, while you, at 40, have the memory of a senior citizen? If investigators could better detect what protects one person’s mental strengths or chips away at another’s, then perhaps they could devise a program to halt or reverse decline and even shore up improvements.”
• “As it turns out, one essential element of mental fitness has already been identified. “Education seems to be an elixir that can bring us a healthy body and mind throughout adulthood and even a longer life,” says Margie E. Lachman, a psychologist at Brandeis University who specializes in aging. For those in midlife and beyond, a college degree appears to slow the brain’s aging process by up to a decade, adding a new twist to the cost-benefit analysis of higher education — for young students as well as those thinking about returning to school.”
• “Many researchers believe that human intelligence or brainpower consists of dozens of assorted cognitive skills, which they commonly divide into two categories. One bunch falls under the heading “fluid intelligence,” the abilities that produce solutions not based on experience, like pattern recognition, working memory and abstract thinking, the kind of intelligence tested on I.Q. examinations. These abilities tend to peak in one’s 20s.”
• “Crystallized intelligence,” by contrast, generally refers to skills that are acquired through experience and education, like verbal ability, inductive reasoning and judgment. While fluid intelligence is often considered largely a product of genetics, crystallized intelligence is much more dependent on a bouquet of influences, including personality, motivation, opportunity and culture.
• “At a time when the prospect of a longer life is shadowed by the fear of mental decline, the possibility that the aging can have some control over their mental fitness is an idea even William Osler would support.”

Full article: A Sharper Mind, Middle Age and Beyond, by Patricia Cohen.

Related resources:

• Build Your Cognitive Reserve: Interview with Yaakov Stern
• Art Kramer on Why We Need Walking Book Clubs
• My full talk at New York Public Library
• Debunking 10 Brain Myths
• A brain teaser for each cognitive ability

“Conclusions: Our results showed that playing Brain Age for 4 weeks could lead to improve cognitive functions (executive functions and processing speed) in the elderly. This result indicated that there is a possibility which the elderly could improve executive functions and processing speed in short term training. The results need replication in large samples. Long-term effects and relevance for every-day functioning remain uncertain as yet.”

We were quite critical of the “BBC brain training” paper published in 2010, because, contrary to what it claimed to do, it didn’t answer the question, “does brain training work”. We need to be equally critical of this new study, given its very small size (only 30 people), the fact it was not run in a completely independent manner (Dr. Ryuta Kawashima is one of the co-authors), the selection of control (Tetris), among other factors. We share the study here because it is indeed an interesting study, but it should be seen as a “small dot”, not as a definitive study to “connect the dots”.

To learn more, you can read:

• Learning with Video Games: A Revolution in Education and Training?
• Does cognitive training work? (For Whom? For What?)
• BBC “Brain Training” Experiment: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly
• Are videogames good for YOU? Depends on who YOU are

Building Blocks for a Better Future

The best alternative for tomorrow should be better than the best alternative available today. How do we get there, when “cognition” and “brain fitness” remain elusive concepts in popular culture? I believe that the lack of public education is the major obstacle that limits the brain fitness field’s potential to deliver real-world benefits, since only informed demand will ensure the ongoing development of rational, structured “rules of the road.” What could be done to address this and other particular obstacles?

Educate the public
Ramp up efforts to build public awareness around a culture of brain fitness and mental capital across the lifespan, including establishing clear links to daily life and work and the role of cognitive, emotional, and self-regulation factors. Too many people still view mental capacity as a kind of unified trait (such as IQ) that is determined by our genes and can only decline with age.

Make it easier to navigate claims
Easy-to-understand and research-based taxonomies could help consumers and professionals evaluate product claims. Perhaps a labeling system, similar to the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, will emerge at the initiative of a regulator or of the industry.

Offer objective cognitive assessment tools
It has been said that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” Reliable, objective assessment tools are critical. Ideally, assessments would be adapted to the particular cognitive demands of different priorities and settings such as workplace performance, functional aging, driving, working as a pilot, or clinical conditions. Perhaps the single most effective way to bring cognitive research into the mainstream conversation would be if people took an “annual brain check-up” (ASA-MetLife Foundation, 2006) to understand their own opportunities for improvement and progress, and to support clinical decision making.

Emphasize brain fitness at the professional level
Professional associations could beef up their efforts to add a brain fitness lens to their existing offerings; this could help incorporate an emphasis on cognition, neuroplasticity, and mental wellness into mainstream activities.

Advocate for more and better research
There are two main priorities for research: to develop widely accepted outcome standards, including an established set of “functional markers” at different levels (such as brain-based, cognitive, and behavioral-functional) for different populations; and to fund trials that test multimodal interventions. Identifying the respective and complementary benefits of different types of interventions can result in better integrated and personalized products and programs.

—

Navigating the Cognitive Product Maze: Ten Things to Consider

1. Target Users. What cohort of the population you serve is ready and willing to use these programs? What criteria are most important to that group?
2. Targeted Benefits. What are the specific cognitive, emotional, or self-regulation skills that the program aims to enhance or retrain? What is the frequency of use (how many hours per week or number of weeks)?
3. Appropriate Level of Challenge. Do the exercises adjust to the individual’s skill level and continually vary and challenge users at an appropriate pace?
4. Scientific Credentials. Are there scientists (ideally, neuropsychologists) behind the program? Is there a clearly defined and credible scientific advisory board? Are there published, peer-reviewed scientific papers on the program’s efficacy?
5. Return on Investment. What are your organization’s key business objectives, and can you independently measure program results to evaluate whether or not the program will meet those objectives?
6. Total Cost of Ownership. What will the total cost of ownership be over the next three to five years including up-front fees, ongoing fees, hardware, software, training and support fees, cost of additional modules, and staff time? How many users will likely end up using the product or system, and what would be the cost of ownership per user?
7. Technical Requirements. What are the technical requirements needed to successfully deploy and maintain the program? Does it require Internet access? Are people expected to install their own CD-ROMs? Who will help solve potential technical maintenance glitches?
8. Staff Training. What type of training is required to run the program and who will provide it?
9. Product Roadmap. What is the vendor’s product roadmap? What is the vendor developing and planning to offer over the next one to three years?
10. References. What similar providers have used this specific program? What benefits have they measured directly? Is the use of the program growing, or is it flat or declining?

—

Summary: Work Toward Accord

The growing interest in the science, practice, and business of brain fitness presents a significant opportunity to build mental capital, enhance mental wellness, and delay symptoms of brain-based decline and disease. To best capitalize on this opportunity, stakeholders must agree on a meaningful and appropriate capacity-based framework—one that supports both consumers and professionals in making informed decisions, and that allows for person-centered and cross sector innovation. Such accord can mean that in five to ten years, we may find ourselves in a much better place. Where to start? By developing a culture of brain fitness and mental capital that spans from cradle to grave: I propose that this is the real business—and guiding ethic—of the brain fitness field.

.….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…

Alvaro Fernandez, M.B.A., M.A., is CEO of SharpBrains.com.

Copyright © 2011 American Society on Aging; all rights reserved. This article may not be duplicated, reprinted or distributed in any form without written permission from the publisher: American Society on Aging, 71 Stevenson St., Suite 1450, San Francisco,CA 94105–2938; e-mail: info@asaging.org.

Credit for pic: BigStockPhoto.

Read previous articles here:

• The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom — Part 1: The Business
• The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom — Part 2: The Ethics
• The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom — Part 3: The Real Need

References

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). 2010. Alzheimer’s Disease and Cognitive Decline, Structured Abstract.April 2010. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, Md. www.ahrq.gov/clinic/tp/alzcogtp.htm. Retrieved April 11,2010.

ASA-MetLife Foundation. 2006.Attitudes and Awareness of Brain Health Poll. San Francisco, Calif.: American Society on Aging.

Barret, L. 2008. Healthy@Home Survey (research commissioned and funded by Blue Shield of California Foundation to AARP Foundation). Washington, D.C.: AARP Foundation.

Dinger, E. 2010. Listening to the Member: The 2010 AARP Member Opinion Survey. AARP Research & Strategic Analysis. Washington,D.C.: AARP.

Fernandez, A. 2010. Transforming Brain Health with Digital Tools to Assess, Enhance and Repair Cognition Across the Lifespan. 2010 “State-of-the-market” Report. San Francisco, Calif.: SharpBrains.

Fernandez, A., and Goldberg, E. 2009. The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness: 18 Interviews with Scientists, Practical Advice, and Product Reviews to Keep Your Brain Sharp. San Francisco, Calif.: SharpBrains.

Olshansky, J., et al. 2011. “The Global Agenda Council on the Ageing Society: Policy Principles.” Global Policy 2: 97–105.

SharpBrains. 2011. “2011 Sharp-Brains Summit: Retooling Brain Health for the 21st Century.” www.sharpbrains.com/summit/agenda/. Retrieved April 21, 2011.

The Government Office for Science. 2008. Foresight Mental Capital and Wellbeing Project: Final Project Report (Executive Summary). London, U.K.: The Government Office for Science.

Valenzuela, M., and Sachdev, P. 2009. “Can Cognitive Exercise Prevent the Onset of Dementia? A Systematic Review of Clinical Trials with Longitudinal Follow Up.” American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 17: 179−87.

Engaging people where they are in the life-course

Eighty percent of the 38,000 adults over age 50 who were responders in the 2010 AARP Member Opinion Survey indicated “staying mentally sharp” was their top ranked interest and concern (Dinger, 2010). What exactly does this phrase mean? And what role can technology play in “staying mentally sharp”? Intel CEO Paul Otellini has said, “You have to start by thinking about what people want to do… and work backward.”

The growing interest in brain fitness presents a significant opportunity to build mental capital, enhance mental wellness, and delay symptoms of brain-based decline and disease.

In March 2008, AARP ran their Healthy@Home Survey (Barret, 2008) asking just under 1,000 responders, ages 65 and over (mean age of 74 years), and their caregivers about their perceptions of successful aging and technologies for successful aging. In a nutshell, the survey’s main findings were that older adults prioritize health and independence, that their obstacles have a strong cognitive or perceptual component, and that they are open to digital health technology.

In other words, the top priority for older adults is not anti-aging—it is about maintaining capacities to function independently. This is where recent cognitive science and digital tools can add more value: managing and enhancing “brain fitness” in the present and the near future—not just preventing or treating Alzheimer’s Disease thirty years from now.

What are some of the areas where people want more help with brain fitness? To answer this question, SharpBrains (www.sharpbrains.com) conducted a survey in March 2010 of our monthly newsletter subscribers (a group not representative of the population at large, but indicative of early adopters and decision makers). We received nearly 1,700 responses from respondents who were ages 40 and older.

When asked what were the most important brain functions necessary to thrive personally and professionally in the twenty-first century, respondents’ priorities covered a range of cognitive, emotional, and self-regulation functions, suggesting that brain fitness solutions will need to integrate all these domains—or at least be able to link their specific functional benefits to specific user priorities. It was interesting to contrast the top two ranked functions (“ability to manage stressful situations”; “concentration power to avoid distractions”) with the bottom two (“ability to multitask”; remembering faces and names”), which may debunk many myths about our assumptions of what people actually want and need. When asked for their beliefs about the effectiveness of certain habits and tools, respondents named intellectual challenges, aerobic exercise, and reading books as most effective, closely followed by meditation.

Simply stated: what people seem to want is help to enhance and prolong their functional mental capacity. The next step is to determine how older adults can best navigate through the brain fitness marketplace.

Empowering Professionals to Empower Consumers

Institutions and professionals in the field of aging have the daily task of helping consumers, patients, and caregivers navigate the available non-invasive options. Personalized assessments and advice are critical, since improvements experienced in therapy and training programs seem more likely to transfer to real life when a person targets the brain function(s) that are specifically relevant to their unique context and its bottlenecks or deficits (SharpBrains, 2011).

People have different needs and priorities, have varying lifestyles, and reside in particular cognitive environments: one size does not fit all.

I propose that institutions and professionals who must traverse this still-emerging, complex landscape first identify an individual’s particular bottlenecks or deficits, then seek the level of clinical validation for options (technology-based or not) that target those specific cognitive, emotional, or self-regulation functions. (See the list on page 68 that can help professionals evaluate brain fitness options.)

The other role professionals play is in educating and empowering consumers, patients, and caregivers to enhance their self-efficacy by making their own decisions. (Our SharpBrains 2009 consumer guide included a program evaluation checklist, excerpted in the box on this page; the full checklist is available at www.SharpBrains.com.)

In the absence of perfect answers—and we won’t have perfect answers for a while, if ever—today’s best course is to provide education and resources that facilitate informed decision making. Professionals in the field of aging are in a unique position to help parse the offerings in the rapidly evolving field of brain fitness.

How to Evaluate Brain Fitness Programs: A Consumer Checklist

Are there scientists and neuropsychologists, and a scientific advisory board behind the program?

• Are there published, peer-reviewed scientific papers in mainstream scientific and professional journals written by those scientists? How many?
• Does the program tell me what part of my brain or which cognitive skill I am exercising?
• Is there an independent assessment tool to measure my progress?
• Is it a structured program, with guidance on how many hours per week and days per week to use it?
• Do the exercises vary and teach me something new?
• Does the program challenge and motivate me, or does it feel like it would become easy once I learned it?
• Does the program fit my personal goals?
• Does the program fit my lifestyle?
• Am I ready and willing to do the program, or would it be too stressful?

To Be Continued…

• Tomor­row, Jan­u­ary 10th: Part 4 — The Future

You can track and dis­cuss each part as it becomes avail­able via my Twit­ter account, our Face­book page, LinkedIn group, and RSS feed. Enjoy, and please add your 2 cents!

Note: This is an excerpt from the Generations article  The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom, by Alvaro Fernandez. Copyright © 2011 American Society on Aging; all rights reserved. This article may not be duplicated, reprinted or distributed in any form without written permission from the publisher: American Society on Aging, 71 Stevenson St., Suite 1450, San Francisco,CA 94105–2938; e-mail: info@asaging.org.

Read previous articles here:

• The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom — Part 1: The Business
• The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom — Part 2: The Ethics

Surely there are other methods better suited to the opportunity at hand other than the purely entertainment-driven “brain age” invention. The following quote from a recent paper in Global Policy invites all stakeholders to shift perceptions of aging from burden to human capital: “We contend that early and repeated preventive care ‘interventions’ (especially in health behaviors and geriatric medicine) and ‘preventive’ measures (such as social integration, design of cities and lifelong learning so that workers can upgrade skills) will delay the onset of late-life difficulties” (Olshansky et al., 2011).

If we are to transform the conversation that currently focuses on the medical model of diagnosis and treatment of a collection of disorders toward dialogue that centers upon a cost-benefits scalable model of life-course investments in brain health and fitness, what strategies could inform this new conversation?

Building mental capital and well-being

The Foresight Project on Mental Capital and Well-being (The Government Office for Science, 2008), a major research and policy initiative launched in 2008 by the government of the United Kingdom, was intended to “promote optimal mental capital trajectories through life for the general population [by] influencing individuals’ mental development and wellbeing from conception until death, analyzing possible interventions to address challenges, drawing upon considerations such as scientific efficacy, economics, governance and ethics.”

A growing portion of the 78 million baby boomers in the United States is  investing time and effort into retaining their mental sharpness.

The Project, a massive endeavor marshaling hundreds of neuroscientists, resulted in dozens of detailed reports and put forward a new framework to guide public policy, with focus on the following two key concepts:

Mental capital. “This encompasses a person’s cognitive and emotional resources. It includes their cognitive ability, how flexible and efficient they are at learning, and their ‘emotional intelligence,’ such as their social skills and resilience in the face of stress. It therefore conditions how well an individual is able to contribute effectively to society, and also to experience a high personal quality of life. The idea of ‘capital’ naturally sparks association with ideas of financial capital and it is both challenging and natural to think of the mind in this way.”

Mental well-being. “This is a dynamic state, in which the individual is able to develop their potential, work productively and creatively, build strong and positive relationships with others, and contribute to their community. It is enhanced when an individual is able to fulfill their personal and social goals and achieve a sense of purpose in society.”

The Project issued a number of life-course recommendations, including the need to address the “massive under-utilization of the mental capital of older adults” and to “act decisively to establish protective lifestyles for those in middle age in areas where the situation is set to worsen, such as the growing number of older people at risk of dementia.”

Ultimately, the primary recommendation culled from all the reports was to promote optimal mental capital trajectories through life for the general population since “…achieving a small change in the average level of well-being across the population would produce a large decrease in the percentage with mental disorder, and also in the percentage who have sub-clinical disorder.”

Translating this to practice, the U.K.’s National Health Service has started to adopt a care model that relies heavily on self-care and automated service models early on in the care continuum. Computerized Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) has become the first standard of care for patients presenting with mild or moderate depression, rather than immediately opting for antidepressant medication. Given the mismatch between the number of available, trained therapists and people who would benefit from this form of brain training, computer-assisted CBT can make a significant difference as a complement or alternative to therapist-delivered CBT.

To Be Continued…

• Next Mon­day, Jan­u­ary 9th: Part 3 — The Real Need
• Next Tuesday, Jan­u­ary 10th: Part 4 — The Future

You can track and dis­cuss each part as it becomes avail­able via my Twit­ter account, our Face­book page, LinkedIn group, and RSS feed. Enjoy, and please add your 2 cents!

Note: This is an excerpt from the Generations article  The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom, by Alvaro Fernandez. Copyright © 2011 American Society on Aging; all rights reserved. This article may not be duplicated, reprinted or distributed in any form without written permission from the publisher: American Society on Aging, 71 Stevenson St., Suite 1450, San Francisco,CA 94105–2938; e-mail: info@asaging.org.

Read Previous Series here:

• The Business and Ethics of the Brain Fitness Boom — Part 1: The Business