When it comes to the brain and memory, Use it and keep it. Challenge it and gain.
The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and Neurology agree that frequent participation in brain-stimulating activities reduced and improved functional and cognitive decline in many older persons. The brain, at all ages, has significant potential to acquire new knowledge and skills with proper training and exercise. By challenging your brain with new activities or games, you strengthen such cognitive skills as the ability to remember something, or solve a problem. Playing games that are challenging takes you out of your comfort zone and forces you to utilize unused areas of your brain.
Like different types of physical exercise, no single mental exercise is ‘all-purpose.’ For instance, crossword puzzles emphasize skills that continue to grow throughout one’s lifespan (verbal abilities). Video games, on the other hand, tend to emphasize skills that are vulnerable to aging (speed, attention, memory, etc.). Thus, video games may offer the opportunity to get ‘exercise’ in areas that need it most. In addition, video games are novel for most older adults, and research suggests that this newness is an important ingredient for successful cognitive intervention.
There are countless easy and enjoyable activities that can help protect and build brainpower, such as doing daily crossword or Sudoku puzzles or learning to speak a foreign language. However, if you’d like to try a more technologically advanced option, consider something that’s specially designed to strengthen your brain. There are several types of electronic games that challenge your brain, and they are available for computers, video-game systems like the Wii, handheld video-game devices like the Nintendo DS, and Web sites. When selecting a game to challenge your brain, look for games that challenge the five senses: hearing, feel, taste, smell, and sight. Games that require problem solving are also ideal.
Scientists and neuropsychologists have developed games available on-line through sites such as www.happy-neuron.com, which features games that exercise all five cognitive areas of the brain, including memory, attention, language, visual/spatial processing, and overall executive functioning. Also on-line are games at MyBrainTrainer.com, which offers interactive exercises, each designed to stimulate a specific region of the brain and to improve mental-processing speed, memory capacity, concentration, multitasking ability, and visual discrimination. On-line sites usually have an annual fee from $30-$100 per year.
Other brain fitness games come in CD-ROM such as Brain Fitness Series and [m]Power Cognitive Fitness System . They are designed to boost memory, information processing, problem-solving abilities, language use, and other skills. The cost varies greatly from $89-$2,500.
Perhaps the biggest craze to hit Senior Living communities is the Nintendo Wii. Seniors are not only bowling on Wii, but are playing My Word Coach, which is designed to help people improve their vocabulary and provides users with a tool to track their progress and potential.
Nintendo is making it accessible and easy for those confined to their home to help stimulate your brain and give it the workout it needs. One must first purchase a Nintendo handheld device, which ranges in cost from $80-$200. Brain Age and Brain Age2, designed for handheld Nintendo DS systems, trains users across 15 activities: solving simple math problems, reciting piano songs, testing memory skills in the classic board game “Concentration,” and playing a challenging version of rock, paper, scissors. Users simply write their answers on the touch screen with a stylus pen. Nintendo DS’s voice-recognition technology allows the program to identify particular words spoken during certain activities. Other games available for Nintendo DS are Crosswords, My Word Coach, My Spanish Coach, and My French Coach, all for about $19.99 each.
