In the midst of much health­care reform talk, not enough atten­tion seems focused on ensur­ing health­care sys­tems’ pre­pared­ness to deal with cog­ni­tive health issues –with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease as the most dra­matic exam­ple– which are pre­dicted to grow given aging pop­u­la­tion trends.

Today is World Alzheimer’s Day, and the USA Today com­ments on a new report that makes stark pre­dic­tions:
Global Alzheimer’s cases expected to rise sharply (USA Today)

- “The 2009 World Alzheimer’s Report, released today, esti­mates 35 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide are liv­ing with Alzheimer’s and other forms of demen­tia. The fig­ure is a 10% increase over 2005 numbers.”

- “The num­ber of peo­ple affected by Alzheimer’s is grow­ing at a rapid rate, and the increas­ing per­sonal costs will have sig­nif­i­cant impact on the world’s economies and health care sys­tems,” said Harry Johns, Pres­i­dent and CEO of the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion. “We must make the fight against Alzheimer’s a pri­or­ity here in the United States and world­wide,” he said.

- “The report by London-based non­profit Alzheimer’s Dis­ease Inter­na­tional (ADI), an inter­na­tional fed­er­a­tion of 71 national Alzheimer orga­ni­za­tions (includ­ing the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion), indi­cates that the num­ber of peo­ple with demen­tia is expected to grow sharply to 65.7 mil­lion in 2030 and 115.4 mil­lion in 2050.”

Link to report: Here

The Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion is orga­niz­ing mul­ti­ple Mem­ory Walks to raise aware­ness and funds. You can learn more and join Here. (Per­haps a good oppor­tu­nity to orga­nize a “walk­ing book group” as Arthur Kramer sug­gested in the Sharp­Brains Guide?)

The City of San Fran­cisco, led by its Depart­ment of Aging and Adult Ser­vices (DAAS), con­vened since 2008 an Alzheimer’s/ Demen­tia Expert Panel to iden­tify gaps and issue rec­om­men­da­tions to address the grow­ing cri­sis in demen­tia care at the city level, and is about to release a pio­neer­ing plan that may well influ­ence pub­lic health ini­tia­tives in other cities and states. An interim doc­u­ment can be found here: 2020 Foresight-Strategy For Excel­lence in Demen­tia Care (pdf)

One of the major areas of focus for that strat­egy was Edu­ca­tion & Pre­ven­tion, and below we can share a sum­mary of the pre­lim­i­nary find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions. We will high­light the final report when ready.

ALZHEIMER’S/DEMENTIA EXPERT PANEL

EDUCATION AND PREVENTION SUBCOMMITTEE

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The subcommittee’s charge was to con­sider how best to edu­cate the San Fran­cisco com­mu­nity about Alzheimer’s and related demen­tias to change atti­tudes, beliefs, behav­iors, stan­dards of prac­tice, and out­comes asso­ci­ated with the disease.

Spe­cific top­ics addressed include:
· Pro­tec­tive fac­tors relat­ing to demen­tia, includ­ing risk fac­tors and brain health
· Early iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of demen­tia
· Early access to ser­vices
· Com­mu­nity edu­ca­tion
· Edu­ca­tion of pro­fes­sion­als and non­pro­fes­sion­als, includ­ing physi­cians, psy­chi­a­trists and psy­chol­o­gists, social work­ers, nurses, and other care­givers, both paid care­givers and infor­mal care­givers such as fam­ily and friends
· Eth­i­cal issues
· Pol­icy issues

The dis­sem­i­na­tion of accu­rate infor­ma­tion about Alzheimer’s and related demen­tias can play an impor­tant role in Read the rest of this entry »

The Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging and Sharp­Brains have part­nered to co-produce a pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment day for pro­fes­sion­als in the field of aging. The day is themed “New Tools, New Part­ner­ships”, and will take place on Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 11th, 2009, dur­ing ASA’s West Coast Con­fer­ence on Aging, in the Oak­land Mar­riot City Cen­ter, Oak­land, CA.

“Given aging pop­u­la­tion trends, it is clear that we need more and bet­ter trained aging pro­fes­sion­als, and that brain health needs to be a major com­po­nent in that train­ing. We are pleased to part­ner with Sharp­Brains to offer the lat­est think­ing, best prac­tices, and resources, to our mem­bers,” said Car­ole Ander­son, Vice Pres­i­dent of Education.

“The grow­ing inter­est in brain health and fit­ness among con­sumers and pro­fes­sion­als alike needs to be accom­pa­nied by high-quality edu­ca­tional ini­tia­tives to help sep­a­rate real­ity from hope from hype. We are hon­ored to part­ner with the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging in this impor­tant endeavor,” said Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, CEO & co-founder of Sharp­Brains and co-author of The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness.

Descrip­tion and How to Reg­is­ter
Since 2006, healthy aging pio­neers have been actively eval­u­at­ing and imple­ment­ing an expand­ing menu of stim­u­lat­ing brain health pro­grams. The Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging and Sharp­Brains have part­nered to intro­duce aging pro­fes­sion­als to the best prac­tices in a vari­ety of community-based and res­i­den­tial set­tings, dis­cuss emerg­ing trends that will affect your work in years to come, and offer you resources to under­stand and nav­i­gate through the grow­ing array of options.

Par­tic­i­pants will receive a com­pli­men­tary and signed copy of the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (May 2009, $24.95).

Learn­ing objec­tives are:

- Under­stand the com­ple­men­tary value the four main lifestyle pil­lars for life­long brain health and why “men­tal exer­cise”, beyond sim­ple “men­tal activ­ity”, is one of them.
– Iden­tify the best mix of brain health prac­tices and tech­nolo­gies by dis­cussing real world case stud­ies in a vari­ety of set­tings: adult edu­ca­tion, inde­pen­dent liv­ing, assisted liv­ing.
– Dis­cuss the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges of build­ing inno­v­a­tive part­ner­ships between a non-profit orga­ni­za­tions and a for-profit com­pa­nies.
– Explore emerg­ing trends in research, pub­lic health, life­long learn­ing, and tech­nol­ogy, to ensure that health and aging pro­fes­sion­als are well equipped for years to come.

When and where: Fri­day, Sep­tem­ber 11th, 2009, at the Oak­land Mar­riott City Center.

Reg­is­tra­tion fees for Sharp­Brains clients and read­ers are $150 (offi­cial fees are $180) . Fee is for the full day ses­sion and includes up to six hours of CEU cred­its plus book and materials.

You can Reg­is­ter HERE, using Part­ner Orga­ni­za­tion Code: WCSB.

The Pro­gram
9:00 — 10:30 am Keynote– The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness

This ses­sion will pro­vide an overview of the most recent research, guide­lines and resources to “Use It and Improve It”, sum­ma­riz­ing the main find­ings and top­ics from the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness. It will debunk 10 brain fit­ness myths; dis­cuss how the brain works and the 4 pil­lars of brain main­te­nance; explain the dif­fer­ence between men­tal exer­cise and men­tal activ­ity and iden­tify research-based ways to exer­cise our brains; and review what 21 brain fit­ness soft­ware pack­ages do and what they don’t do. Finally, the ses­sion will dis­cuss emerg­ing trends to ensure that health and aging pro­fes­sion­als are well equipped for years to come.

- Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, SharpBrains

11:00 to 12:00 noon Bring­ing Brain Fit­ness to the Com­mu­nity Center

Sci­ence con­tin­ues to high­light the impor­tance of stay­ing active men­tally as well as phys­i­cally; peo­ple of all ages and sit­u­a­tions face the chal­lenge of learn­ing what brain exer­cise is, how it can help them, and how to incor­po­rate it into their busy lives. The Penin­sula Jew­ish Com­mu­nity Cen­ter (PJCC) has formed a unique part­ner­ship with vibrant­Brains, a pio­neer­ing gym for brain exer­cise, to explore new ways to bring brain fit­ness into the com­mu­nity on top of its exist­ing fit­ness and edu­ca­tional activities.

- Jane Post, Penin­sula Jew­ish Com­mu­nity Cen­ter; Lisa Schooner­man, vibrantBrains

1:30 to 2:30 pm Lat­est Tech­nolo­gies and Brain Health: Value and Limitations

Four inno­v­a­tive prac­ti­tion­ers will share their first-hand expe­ri­ence imple­ment­ing com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing pro­grams in dif­fer­ent set­tings: adult edu­ca­tion classes, inde­pen­dent liv­ing, and assisted liv­ing. They will dis­cuss the Pros and Cons of tech­nol­ogy pro­grams pro­vided by Dakim, Posit Sci­ence and Cog­niFit, help­ing the audi­ence explore how tech­nol­ogy can enhance exist­ing brain health and well­ness pro­grams and how this trend will affect their work in the future.

- James Arp, Bel­mont Vil­lage; Kari Olsen, Front Porch; Shel­lie Sul­li­van, Lake­view Vil­lage; Teri Barr, Oak­land Uni­fied School District

2:30 to 3:15 pm Engag­ing the Com­mu­nity to Inte­grate Brain Health Research into Life­long Learning

OLLI @Berkeley has devel­oped a mem­ber­ship team to inves­ti­gate how to inte­grate neu­ro­science dis­cov­er­ies into their life­long learn­ing cur­ricu­lum and ongo­ing com­mu­nity activ­i­ties. If older adults are told that, in addi­tion to exer­cise, nutri­tion, among other things, men­tal stim­u­la­tion is required that is novel, chal­leng­ing and varied—how can life­long learn­ing cen­ters and adults them­selves judge what that is and how to inte­grate those under­stand­ings our activ­i­ties and lives?. Susan Hoff­man will share the method­ol­ogy and insights of work­ing with the com­mu­nity as well as with a wide range of experts and sci­en­tists, and dis­cuss what might be pos­si­ble in a vari­ety of insti­tu­tional set­tings such as yours.

- Susah Hoff­man, OLLI@Berkeley

3:30 to 4.30 pm San Fran­cisco Alzheimer’s Edu­ca­tion & Pre­ven­tion Task­force: Get­ting Ready for the Future

The San Fran­cisco Mayor’s office, in part­ner­ship with the Depart­ment of Aging & Adult Ser­vices recently con­vened an expert panel and com­mit­tees to cre­ate a strate­gic plan for address­ing the needs of San Fran­cis­cans with mem­ory loss and demen­tia through the year 2020. Learn about the process, find­ings and rec­om­men­da­tions on how the city of San Fran­cisco plans to address edu­ca­tion and pre­ven­tion of demen­tia now and in the future.

- Eliz­a­beth Edgerly, Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion; Bill Haskells, Depart­ment of Aging & Adult Services

4:30 pm What We Have Learned, What is Next

What are some of the pri­or­i­ties and chal­lenges for the next 12 months for the field at large, and for every­one involved? This inter­ac­tive ses­sion will help us sum­ma­rize the key high­lights from the whole day, iden­tify emerg­ing assump­tions, themes, and pri­or­i­ties, and dis­cuss col­lab­o­ra­tive next steps.

- Car­ole Ander­son, Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging; Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, SharpBrains

Speaker Bios
Alvaro Fer­nan­dez is co-founder and CEO of Sharp­Brains, a lead­ing mar­ket research firm that tracks the mar­ket and research for cog­ni­tive assess­ments, train­ing, and games. A mem­ber of the World Eco­nomic Forum’s Global Agenda Coun­cils, he has been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Jour­nal, USA Today, and more, and recently co-authored the book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp. Alvaro received mas­ters’ degrees in edu­ca­tion and busi­ness from Stan­ford Uni­ver­sity, and teaches at UC-Berkeley Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute.Jane Post is the Asso­ciate Exec­u­tive Direc­tor at the Penin­sula Jew­ish Com­mu­nity Cen­ter. With a back­ground that started in sum­mer youth camp­ing and tran­si­tioned into Com­mu­nity Cen­ter group work, the Illi­nois native moved to the Bay Area in 1979 to begin her thriv­ing career with the Penin­sula Jew­ish Com­mu­nity Cen­ter (PJCC) in Fos­ter City. Serv­ing in posi­tions rang­ing from Youth Direc­tor to Senior Adult Direc­tor, Ms. Post has enjoyed over 30 suc­cess­ful years with the PJCC and today is the Center’s Asso­ciate Exec­u­tive Direc­tor. She holds a Master’s degree in Social Work from the Uni­ver­sity of South­ern California.

Lisa Schooner­man is a co-founder at vibrant­Brains. Lisa held a vari­ety of tech­ni­cal and edi­to­r­ial posi­tions with the Thom­son Cor­po­ra­tion in the Legal Pub­lish­ing divi­sion (now Thom­son­Reuters), begin­ning in Rochester, NY and then com­ing to San Fran­cisco to work for what was then Ban­croft Whit­ney. Lisa’s work for Thom­son included a 3-year assign­ment in the UK, where she was Edi­to­r­ial Direc­tor of the group pro­vid­ing con­tent for West­law UK, the first inter­na­tional appli­ca­tion of the West­law database.

James Arp works as the West Regional Direc­tor for Activ­ity and Mem­ory Pro­grams for Bel­mont Vil­lage, where he was involved in a pilot pro­gram using com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive train­ing. James has also worked as an Admin­is­tra­tor for sev­eral Inter­me­di­ate Care Facil­i­ties for the Devel­op­men­tally Dis­abled and in Guardian­ship, and has a Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence Degree in Psy­chol­ogy and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Disorders.

Kari Olson, Chief Infor­ma­tion Offi­cer of Front Porch, leads all tech­nol­ogy ini­tia­tives for Front Porch and its part­ners. Kari is also the Pres­i­dent of the Front Porch Cen­ter for Tech­nol­ogy Inno­va­tion and Well­be­ing whose mis­sion is to explore inno­v­a­tive uses of tech­nol­ogy to empower indi­vid­u­als to live well, espe­cially in their later years. Kari is actively involved in the Cen­ter for Aging Ser­vices Tech­nolo­gies where she serves as a com­mis­sioner, steer­ing com­mit­tee mem­ber and task group chair for Boomer Tech­nol­ogy Needs Research and co-chair of the Provider Needs Research Work­group. Kari speaks reg­u­larly around the coun­try on tech­nol­ogy for aging ser­vices. Kari holds a BA in eco­nom­ics from Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Los Ange­les and has com­pleted grad­u­ate course work in edu­ca­tion at Cal­i­for­nia State Uni­ver­sity, Los Angeles.

Teri Barr admin­is­ters the brain fit­ness classes for older adults at Oak­land Uni­fied School Dis­trict. She has a BFA from the Art Insti­tute of Chicago and a MSPE from the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois. In Illi­nois, she designed and imple­mented well­ness classes in Com­mu­nity Col­lege, Uni­ver­sity and Hos­pi­tal set­tings. Since mov­ing to Cal­i­for­nia, she has worked for OACE (Oak­land Adult and Career Edu­ca­tion) in the Older Adult Pro­gram. She started research for brain health classes in 2006 and began the pro­gram at OACE in 2007.

Shel­lie Sul­li­van is the Vol­un­teer Coor­di­na­tor at Lake­view Vil­lage, a faith-based, non­profit retire­ment com­mu­nity in Lenexa for 800 seniors offer­ing active liv­ing and sup­ported options. Ms. Sul­li­van coor­di­nated and sup­ported the cog­ni­tive train­ing por­tion of the Phys­i­cal & Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Study in which Lake­view par­tic­i­pated under the super­vi­sion of Dr. Art Kramer, from the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois. She admin­is­tered all of the cog­ni­tive pre– and post-assessments to Lake­view Vil­lage res­i­dents and com­mu­nity vol­un­teers and guided par­tic­i­pants using cog­ni­tive train­ing soft­ware through­out the entire study. Ms. Sul­li­van is a grad­u­ate from The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity with a degree in Communications.

Susan E. Hoff­man is the direc­tor of the Osher Life­long Learn­ing Insti­tute within the Vice Provost’s Office for Teach­ing and Learn­ing at UC Berke­ley. For the past fif­teen years she has worked at UC and CSU cam­puses launch­ing new inter­dis­ci­pli­nary and inter­na­tional pro­grams. Before then, she served as the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Cal­i­for­nia Con­fed­er­a­tion of the Arts, rep­re­sent­ing Cal­i­for­nia artists, art edu­ca­tors and arts orga­ni­za­tions in Sacra­mento and Wash­ing­ton for a decade. Her cre­ative work includes being a writer and film­maker. Her fac­ulty appoint­ments have been in cre­ative writ­ing, the­atre and polit­i­cal philosophy.

Eliz­a­beth Edgerly, Ph.D., is the Chief Pro­gram Offi­cer for the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion and national spokesper­son for the Association’s Main­tain Your Brain pro­gram. She over­sees the many pro­grams of the Asso­ci­a­tion for patients, fam­i­lies and health care pro­fes­sion­als. In addi­tion, she staffs the Med­ical Sci­en­tific Advi­sory Coun­cil of the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion — North­ern Cal­i­for­nia. She received her Ph.D. in clin­i­cal psy­chol­ogy at the State Uni­ver­sity of New York and spe­cial­ized in geropsy­chol­ogy and neu­ropsy­chol­ogy. Dr. Edgerly joined the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion after com­plet­ing a fel­low­ship in clin­i­cal geropsy­chol­ogy at the Palo Alto VA Hospital.

How to Register

Reg­is­tra­tion fees for Sharp­Brains clients and read­ers are $150 (offi­cial fees are $180) . Fee is for the full day ses­sion and includes up to six hours of CEU cred­its plus book and materials.

You can Reg­is­ter HERE, using Part­ner Orga­ni­za­tion Code: WCSB. 

About the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging

Founded in 1954, the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging is an asso­ci­a­tion of diverse indi­vid­u­als bound by a com­mon goal: to sup­port the com­mit­ment and enhance the knowl­edge and skills of those who seek to improve the qual­ity of life of older adults and their fam­i­lies. The mem­ber­ship of ASA is a mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary array of pro­fes­sion­als who are con­cerned with the phys­i­cal, emo­tional, social, eco­nomic and spir­i­tual aspects of aging. They range from prac­ti­tion­ers, edu­ca­tors, admin­is­tra­tors, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, busi­ness peo­ple, researchers, stu­dents, and more. For more infor­ma­tion, visit http://www.asaging.org/

About Sharp­Brains

Sharp­Brains is a mar­ket research & pub­lish­ing firm devoted to help­ing orga­ni­za­tions, pro­fes­sion­als and con­sumers nav­i­gate the brain fit­ness and cog­ni­tive health field. The com­pany was co-founded by exec­u­tive Alvaro Fer­nan­dez, mem­ber of the Global Agenda Coun­cils ini­tia­tive run by the World Eco­nomic Forum, and neu­ro­sci­en­tist Dr. Elkhonon Gold­berg, inter­na­tion­ally renowned for his clin­i­cal work, research, and writ­ing. Sharp­Brains recently released the The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness: 18 Inter­views with Sci­en­tists, Prac­ti­cal Advice, and Prod­uct Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp (May 2009; $24.95). For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.sharpbrains.com/

I  am very excited to pre-announce a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging (ASA) to co-produce a Brain Health event, themed “New Tools, New Part­ner­ships”, to take place in Oak­land, CA, on Sep­tem­ber 11th. Read the rest of this entry »

Given the fact I love Kin­dle, and some of our Twit­ter friends had been ask­ing for a Kin­dle ver­sion of our new book The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness…well, here it is:
Amazon.com: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fit­ness (Kin­dle Edi­tion, $9.99)

The book has also received two excel­lent new endorsements:

“Kudos for an excel­lent resource! This Sharp­Brains Guide is full of top notch infor­ma­tion, pro­vides prac­ti­cal tips and helps sep­a­rate hype from hope in the brain health arena.“
— Eliz­a­beth Edgerly, Ph.D., Chief Pro­gram Offi­cer, Alzheimer’s Association

“The Sharp­Brains’ Guide to Brain Fit­ness helped answer many of my ques­tions on the impor­tance of both phys­i­cal and men­tal exer­cise to stay sharp as we age, as they act in syn­ergy on one another. The Guide also pro­vided guide­lines and spe­cific calls to action to expand what we tra­di­tion­ally do in our fit­ness clubs. This is an impor­tant book for any­one in the fit­ness indus­try, and, for that mat­ter, for any­one with a brain.“
— Robin Klaus, Chair­man, Club One Fit­ness Centers

More infor­ma­tion on the book: The Sharp­Brains Guide to Brain Fitness

Also: Book Club Dis­cus­sion Guide

The Alzheimer’s Foun­da­tion of Amer­ica just released a thought­ful report advo­cat­ing for wide­spread cog­ni­tive screen­ings after the age of 65 (55 given the right conditions).

Accord­ing to the press release,

- “The report shat­ters unsub­stan­ti­ated crit­i­cism and instead empha­sizes the safety and cost-effectiveness of these tools and calls on Con­gress to develop a national demen­tia screen­ing policy.”

- “Lift­ing the bar­ri­ers to early detec­tion is long over­due, Hall said. “Con­ver­sa­tions about brain health are not tak­ing place. We must edu­cate and empower con­sumers to talk openly about mem­ory con­cerns, par­tic­u­larly with pri­mary care providers, so they get the atten­tion and qual­ity of life they deserve.

- “Demand for screen­ings is evi­denced by the suc­cess of AFA’s recent sixth annual National Mem­ory Screen­ing Day held on Novem­ber 18, dur­ing which an esti­mated 50,000 peo­ple were given free con­fi­den­tial mem­ory screen­ings at nearly 2,200 com­mu­nity sites nation­wide. Dur­ing last year’s event, approx­i­mately 16 per­cent of indi­vid­u­als who had a face-to-face screen­ing scored pos­i­tive and were referred to their pri­mary care providers for follow-up. An AFA sur­vey of par­tic­i­pants revealed that fewer than one in four with self-reported mem­ory com­plaints had pre­vi­ously dis­cussed them with their physi­cians despite recent visits.”

Excel­lent report avail­able: here

Please note that the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion recently argued in the oppo­site direc­tion (no screen­ings) — which prob­a­bly trig­gered this response.

We see emerg­ing trends that sug­gest the posi­tion in favor of cog­ni­tive assess­ments may in fact gather momen­tum over the next few years: wide­spread com­put­er­ized cog­ni­tive screen­ings in the US Army, insur­ance com­pa­nies like OptumHealth adding such tools to its clin­i­cal decision-making sys­tems, polls such as the Amer­i­can Soci­ety of Aging’s a cou­ple of years ago indi­cat­ing a very strong demand for an “annual men­tal check-up”, the avail­abil­ity of use­ful assess­ment tools and research-based pre­ven­tive advice.

The start­ing point is to under­stand what those assess­ments are NOT: they are not diag­nos­tic tools. When used prop­erly, they can be used as a base­line to track per­for­mance in a vari­ety of cog­ni­tive domains over time, so that both the indi­vid­ual AND the physi­cian are not blinded by a one-time assess­ment, com­par­ing an indi­vid­ual with his or her peers (instead of his or her past per­for­mance) when seri­ous symp­toms have fre­quently already been going on for a while.

Our con­trib­u­tor  Dr. Joshua Sil­ver­man, from Albert Ein­stein Col­lege of Med­i­cine, recently gen­er­ated a nice debate on the topic by ask­ing our read­ers their reac­tion to these 3 ques­tions: Read the rest of this entry »

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: Read the rest of this entry »

We recently pre­pared a Direc­tory of Web Sites as part of our Resources sec­tion. You will find some gems here, in a vari­ety of areas:

» The Dana Foun­da­tion offers sev­eral excel­lent online resources:

- Brainy Kids Online offers chil­dren, teens, par­ents and teach­ers links to games, labs, edu­ca­tion resources and les­son plans.

- Brain­Web: gen­eral infor­ma­tion about the brain and cur­rent brain research, as well as links to val­i­dated sites related to more than 25 brain disorders.

- Brain Resources for Seniors pro­vides older adults and their care­tak­ers with links to sites related to brain health, edu­ca­tion and gen­eral information.

Read the rest of this entry »

Round-up of inter­est­ing recent news on cog­ni­tive health and fit­ness: the field is in motion.

1) Bay­crest cre­ates Cen­tre for Brain Fit­ness with $10-million Invest­ment from Ontario Gov­ern­ment (Canada NewsWire)

2) Cog­ni­tive tests are the best way to select med­ical stu­dents (EurekAlert)

3) High blood pres­sure hard on the aging brain (Reuters)

4) Alzheimer’s tests ben­e­fi­cial for seniors (Atlanta-Journal Constitutional)

5) Dementia-Dreading Baby Boomers Spur Race to Invent Brain Games (Bloomberg)

6) Viv­ity Labs launches Fit Brains brain-training game site (VentureBeat) 

7) Depres­sion and Alzheimer’s (NHS Choices)

For selected quotes and com­ments, Read the rest of this entry »

Sev­eral recent news (includ­ing video of our recent panel discussion):

1) Study Finds Improved Cog­ni­tive Health among Older Amer­i­cans (Jour­nal of the Alzheimer’s Association)

- “Soci­etal invest­ment in build­ing and main­tain­ing cog­ni­tive reserve through for­mal edu­ca­tion in child­hood and con­tin­ued cog­ni­tive stim­u­la­tion dur­ing work and leisure in adult­hood may help limit the bur­den of demen­tia among the grow­ing num­ber of older adults worldwide”.

- “Cog­ni­tive impair­ment dropped from 12.2 per­cent in 1993 to 8.7 per­cent in 2002 among peo­ple 70 and older.“ 

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A spate of recent news cov­er­age on brain fit­ness and “brain train­ing” reflects a grow­ing inter­est in nat­ural, non-drug-based inter­ven­tions to keep our brains sharp as we age. This inter­est is very timely, given the aging pop­u­la­tion, increas­ing Alzheimer’s rates, and soar­ing health care costs that place more empha­sis than ever on pre­ven­tion and chang­ing lifestyle.

This past Tues­day, the MIT Club of North­ern Cal­i­for­nia, the Amer­i­can Soci­ety on Aging, and Smart­Sil­vers spon­sored an event on The Emerg­ing Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket: Build­ing Bet­ter Brains to explore the real­i­ties and myths of this grow­ing field. The panel was mod­er­ated by Zack Lynch, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Neu­rotech­nol­ogy Indus­try Orga­ni­za­tion, and com­posed of a ven­ture cap­i­tal­ist and 3 CEOs of pro­gram devel­op­ers in the field. Before the panel, I had the chance to present an overview of the state of the Brain Fit­ness Soft­ware Mar­ket based on our upcom­ing report to be released on March 4th.

Why are we talk­ing about this field at all? Well, for one, an increas­ing num­ber of com­pa­nies are achiev­ing sig­nif­i­cant com­mer­cial suc­cess in pack­ag­ing “brain exer­cise”. An exam­ple is the line of Nin­tendo games, such as Brain Age and Brain Train­ing, that have shipped over 15 mil­lion units world­wide despite lim­ited sci­en­tific sup­port, since 2005. What is less vis­i­ble is that a num­ber of com­pa­nies and sci­en­tists are Read the rest of this entry »