Here you have the March edition of our monthly newsletter covering cognitive health and brain fitness topics. Please remember that you can subscribe to receive this Newsletter by email, using the box at the top of this page. I know I am biased – but do believe this Newsletter issue might well be our best so far. I hope you find the time to enjoy it!

Bird’s Eye View

Brain Fitness Survey: Over 2,000 thoughtful responses to our January survey (Thank You!) reinforce the need for public awareness initiatives and quality information to help evaluate and navigate lifestyle and product claims, as well as the need for more research, an expanded healthcare culture, as more. Given this context, we are publishing The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness in May 2009, a book with 18 Interviews with Scientists, Practical Advice, and Product Reviews, in addition to our annual market report for professionals and executives (to be published in April). If you have ideas to help us promote the book, please reply to this email and let us know!

Lifelong Learning

A person who helped reinvent “aging”, “retirement” and “learning”, contributing to the cognitive health of millions of individuals as a result:

Martin P. ‘Marty’ Knowlton dies at 88; co-founder of Elderhostel (Los Angeles Times)

- “Martin P. “Marty” Knowlton, a world traveler who fought ageism by co-founding Elderhostel, a program that pioneered learning vacations for mature adults, has died. He was 88.”

- “Knowlton died Thursday of natural causes at a nursing home in Ventura, said David Bianco, who started Elderhostel with his friend in 1975.”

- “When he was about 50, Knowlton became highly annoyed by two things: the prevailing wisdom that “as you got older, your mind automatically began to fail” and the government notifying him that “old age begins at 55,” he told the Ventura County Star in 2000.”

The article: Here

Elderhostel website: Here

Increased longevity has generated many questions and much interest in healthy aging and retirement lifestyles over the recent decades. As Americans become educated regarding lifestyle choices that contribute to both physical and mental health, the definition of healthy aging has expanded to include brain health.

The notion of retirement as a time of withdrawal from society, to be spent on rest and repose reflected the thinking of a previous era when people expected shorter life spans. It is now known that the human brain benefits from environments rich in novel and complex stimuli, and that by actively participating in society and taking on personally relevant roles, people find meaning and purpose, which gives them a reason to get up in the morning and pursue new challenges.

This year, the MetLife Mature Market Institute® published a research study titled Discovering What Matters: Balancing Money, Medicine and Meaning. The study explored how people rebalance their priorities over time and juggle various competing aspects of life including money, medicine (a metaphor for health) and meaning, in order to live the “Good Life.” Having purpose was found to Read the rest of this entry »

Here you have the November edition of our monthly newsletter covering cognitive health and brain fitness topics. Please remember that you can subscribe to receive this Newsletter by email, simply by submitting your email at the top of this page.

Thank you for your interest, attention and participation in our SharpBrains community. As always, we appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Summit of the Global Agenda

How can we persuade business leaders, policy-makers and researchers of the urgency to develop and promote an integrated “Healthy Living” agenda focused on maintaining lifelong physical and cognitive health, vs. the usual mindset focused on dealing with specific diseases and problems once they arise?

In The Future of the Aging Society: Burden or Human Capital?, I summarize some of the key themes discussed at the World Economic Forum event in Dubai on November 7-9th. The world is aging – and in healthier ways. But our healthcare and retirement systems are on track to go bankrupt – their premises are outdated. The current disease-based research agenda compounds the problem. Solutions? 1) Promote Healthy Lifestyles that help Maintain Physical and Cognitive Functional Abilities, 2) Redesign Environments to Foster Health, Engagement and Financial Security, 3) Develop an Integrated Healthy Living & Aging Research Agenda. Specifically, we could work with the UN and Global 2000 companies to move forward a new agenda.

Planet Earth 2.0: A New Operating System: Imagine seeing a top sheik in Dubai, wrapped in traditional Arab clothing, exclaim “Yes We Can” (a la Obama) in front of the 800 global experts, adding that “we build the future with our own hands”. Some of the attendants of the World Economic Forum’s Summit of the Global Agenda urged us to “reboot” the system. More than a “reboot”, we may have to upgrade to a new global “Yes We Can” operating system.

Brain Fitness Research

Neuroplasticity and the Brain That Changes Itself: Laurie Bartels reviews the excellent book by Norman Doidge, explaining that “the neuroscience behind Doidge’s book involves neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to rewire itself. This means that the brain – our intelligence – is not something fixed in concrete but rather a changing, learning entity.”

Can We Pick Your Brain re: Cognitive Assessments?: In our view, a critical component in the maturity of the brain fitness market will be the availability of inexpensive, valid and reliable objective cognitive assessments,  to help measure how our brain functions change over time and identify priorities for targeted improvements. Dr. Joshua Steinerman asks if you would be up for them?

Use It (Properly) or Lose It

Physical and mental exercise to prevent cognitive decline: The American Medical News, a weekly newspaper for physicians published by the American Medical Association, just published an excellent article on the importance of physical and mental exercise. We are very happy to see efforts like these to train physicians and health professionals in general,  given that most of them were trained under a very different understanding of the brain than the one we have today.

Brain Fitness 2: Sight & Sound: PBS recently announced the second installment of their popular Brain Fitness Program show, to start airing soon.

MetaCarnival #1: a conversation across the blogosphere: We often insist on “Novelty, Variety and Challenge” as key ingredients for good “brain exercise”. There are many ways to mix those ingredients – you may enjoy this one, the first interdisciplinary gathering of blogs and blog carnivals covering health, science, anthropology, general advice and more.

Top 15 Brain Teasers and Games for Mental Exercise: Over the last 2 years we have published close to 100 puzzles, teasers, riddles, and every kind of mental exercise (without counting our in-depth interviews with top neuroscientists). Which ones have proven most stimulating for you. Let us know. Here is a selection of our Top 15 teasers.

Final Details

Please share this newsletter with your friends and colleagues if you haven’t done so already.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

(Please note that this is my personal take at the discussions that took place in Dubai as part of the Global Agenda Council on the Challenges of Gerontology put together by the World Economic Forum, and builds on the work of my colleagues, but it does not represent a formal document or statement of position. Simply put, we would like to engage your brain in defining the challenges and outlining/ executing the solutions).

Context: The Challenges of the Aging Society

The world is aging. This is occurring in two ways: through shifts in the age structure that will eventually lead to many more people reaching older ages than ever before, and through continued success in extending life. Less than 100 years ago, life expectancy was between 30 to 40 years. Today, close to 800 million citizens are 60 and over.

And aging in healthier ways. Aging has incorrectly been associated with decline and decay, when in fact many people live healthy into older ages. There has been a synchronous extension in life expectancy and quality of life – the average 65-year-old today is much healthier, physically and mentally, than the average 50-year-old of 100-150 years ago – when most existing institutions were envisioned and created.

Healthy life can be further extended with existing knowledge. The fact is the onset and progression of fatal and disabling diseases, disorders, and disability can be postponed using well-researched basic measures of public health, environmental and behavioural changes, and medical technology interventions. The same methods may be used to improve or maintain mental and physical functioning.

Our healthcare and retirement systems are on bankruptcy track – their premises are outdated. Existing institutions, policies and attitudes do not reflect the points outlined above, having been developed for a society that no longer exists. We need to get on the right track: Read the rest of this entry »

Here you have the twice-a-month newsletter with our most popular blog posts. Please remember that you can subscribe to receive this Newsletter by email, simply by submitting your email at the top of this page.

Major Implications from Brain Research

Should Social-Emotional Learning Be Part of Academic Curriculum?: It is clear by now that our brains are more than cognitive machines. For example, emotions can either enhance or inhibit our ability to learn. Daniel Goleman explores the implications of “new studies that reveal how teaching kids to be emotionally and socially competent boost their academic achievement.” Brought to you in partnership with Greater Good Magazine.

Retain older workers beyond retirement: BusinessWeek covers a best practice in a topic of growing importance: how large companies, such as American Express, can retain older workers in productive ways beyond a set arbitrary retirement age. As Dr. Art Kramer told us recently, “as a society, it is a massive waste of talent not to ensure older adults remain active and productive.”

BrainTech and Sustainable Brains: Building on a recent quote by John Doerr about clean technology trends, we wonder… “If Energy is the mother of all markets…who would be the father of all markets?” The Human Brain, perhaps?

Health and Research

What You Can do to Improve Memory (and Why It Deteriorates in Old Age): Is there anything we can do besides “exercise like crazy, eat healthy foods that you don’t like all that much, pop your statin pills, and take up yoga?” Yes: focus, focus, focus, suggests Dr. Bill Klemm.

News and Events

Cognitive Health News August 2008: This is a roundup of recent brain health news and our commentary, including the growing adoption of Dakim and Nintendo products, the cognitive impact of videogames, and the cognitive dimension of the obesity crisis.

Exercise your brain at these events: Alvaro will present the main findings from our market research at multiple conferences in the US, Canada and Dubai during the rest of  the year.

Where does the “Feeling of Knowing” comes from?: Dr. Ginger Campbell shares some insights from her recent interview with neurologist Robert Burton (author of On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You’re Not).“While it might be true that one can learn to become more aware of the emotional signals coming from one’s body, Dr. Burton argues that “gut feelings” or intuition should not be assumed to be true without testing.”

Resources for Brain Health Across the Lifespan: Laurie Bartels shares a list of interviews, video, articles, and books that go hand-in-hand with the brain-related topics we cover.

Brain teaser

Can you use mental self rotation to read a map?: please check out this teaser by Dr. Pascale Michelon, one of our favorites so far.

We hope you have enjoyed this newsletter. We encourage you to stay tuned for our September editions, since great content is coming. We will soon publish an interview with Lee Woodruff, co-author of the book In An Instant: A Family’s Journey of Love and Healing, and discuss the spectacular cognitive recovery of her husband, ABC reporter Bob Woodruff, who experienced a traumatic brain injury in Iraq in 2006. We will also interview Dr. Mike Posner, eminent cognitive neuroscientist, to explore recent findings on attention and attention training and their implications.

BusinessWeek covers a best practice in a topic of growing importance: how large companies can retain older workers in productive ways beyond a set arbitrary retirement age.

Issue: Retiring Employees, Lost Knowledge (Business Week)
A pilot program at American Express gives soon-to-be retirees less work and more time to pass along their expertise to younger generations

- “Before long, the group made an important discovery: Not only would a huge number of employees become eligible for retirement in the next five to 10 years, the company had done little to retain the wealth of institutional knowledge they would be taking with them. From the intricacies of key client relationships to mainframe computer languages no longer being taught in school, many experienced workers possessed critical know-how that, if lost, would be costly—if not impossible—for the company to replace.”

- “These parameters helped shape the American Express phased-retirement program, an initiative launched in pilot mode during Read the rest of this entry »

Given the current political climate, we are pleased to host this thought-provoking article by 2 of our Expert Contributors. Dear Mr or Mrs Next President: how can you help our minds take better care of our brains?

————–

Ask Not What The Health System Can Do For You…

– By Simon J. Evans, PhD and Paul R. Burghardt, PhD.

With the presidential debates gearing up again we are sure to hear more about health care. But we propose a slightly different question. In addition to asking how we can get more people healthcare coverage, we should also ask why so many people are sick in the first place.

The words of John Kennedy might today be, “Ask not what the health care system can do for you. Ask what you can do to reduce the health care burden”. But before delving into what we can do, let’s take a look at some realities that our next president could face in their first ‘State of the Union’ address.

Read the rest of this entry »

Quick link to an excellent and inspiring article in the Wall Street Journal: 12 People Who Are Changing Your Retirement
(open access during a week)

Read the rest of this entry »

A quick note to alert you of two very interesting, growing, and somehow linked debates:

1) Very insightful article on The Aging of the Baby Boomers: What Does It Mean for the Legal Profession (thank you, Stephanie!). Some quotes:

- “As I pen this article, it seems as though I’m writing about someone else—the older worker. Age and aging, it seems, are in the eye of the one looking back at you in the mirror. I have this theory, especially as it pertains to men, that when we look in the mirror, we still see that 20 year-old stud who can leap tall buildings. But I know that my vertical leap is not what it used to be. The reality of aging in the legal profession is upon me and those of our generation.”

- “Also, the perception of how old is old varies depending on the job or profession. For example, Read the rest of this entry »