Brain Fitness Australia

From http://www.westender.com.au

USE IT OR LOSE IT!

18 January 2010

Use it or lose it!

Pilot study by Alzheimers Australia (WA) finds regular brain exercises are the key to healthy ageing

Just two hours of brain exercises a week can markedly improve a person’s mental capacity and help fight age-related memory loss according to a recent study by Alzheimer’s Australia WA.

· Participants found improvements in their memory and were able to follow conversations better.
· Brain has the ability to change in response to new learning.
· Exercising the brain reduces the risk of developing dementia in later years.

The “Brain Fitness Pilot Project” involved people aged in their 60s, 70s and 80s from retirement villages and seniors fitness centres, taking part in a structured brain fitness program two hours per week over an eight-week period.

The program consisted of a series of computer-based hearing exercises aimed at sharpening a person’s ability to take in speech so that the brain can hear and remember more details.

While a majority of participants reported an improvement in their train of thought and could remember names and shopping lists better, another 70 percent found an improvement in their hearing and their ability to follow and remember conversations.

Alzheimer’s Australia WA Chief Executive Officer Frank Schaper said the study demonstrated that a regular program of brain exercises will reduce the impact of cognitive decline as a person grows older and can lead to healthy ageing.

“Research now shows that much of age-related memory decline in later life is the result of negative lifestyle choices. Taking positive steps to ‘train the brain’ work in the same way physical exercise benefits the body,” Mr Schaper said.

“It may also help to reduce the risk of a person developing dementia later in life.”

Brain fitness is based on the idea that the brain is ‘plastic’ and has the ability to change in response to new learning and stimuli. It challenges the notion that we are predisposed to inevitable mental decline as we grow older.

Proactive brain fitness training for adults is now recognised internationally as a way to enhance healthy ageing and delay cognitive decline.

However Mr Schaper said there has not been a focus on such training in Australia, despite the nation’s rapidly ageing population and the predicted impact that age-related cognitive decline will have on our social, health and economic structures.

“If two hours a week can have such significant benefits, imagine the benefits if people undertake brain fitness routines 30 minutes each day,” Mr Schaper said.

Study participants Wendy Brown, 62, and her mother Vicky Eyre, 84, both reported improvements in their memory after completing the brain fitness program.

“I am able to remember number sequences a lot better and that is already benefiting me in my work,” said Ms Brown who runs her own training and consultancy business.

“There have been less instances of me entering a room and forgetting what I was there to do while mum is now able to recall words much better than before.”

Another study participant Leila Kaulkriuter, 62, said since completing the program, she found she was able to remember a lot more in her daily activities.

“I now remember what I need to buy from the shops which means I don’t need as many lists as before,’ she said.

“Words come to me much more easily in conversations and I can recall characters in books and on TV.”

For full text please visit: http://www.westender.com.au/news/770/15/Use-it-or-lose-it

From 7perth.com.au

BRAIN TRAINING
18 December 2009
Reporter: Andrea Burns

Helen Thornton and Peter Saunders are both 74, with fit bodies many a decade younger would envy. But it’s the muscle between their ears they’re most keen to keep supple and young. Their brains. “Getting forgetful, how much does hat concern you as you get a little bit older? concerns me a lot”

Helen says “as you get older, you need to work harder, not give up and sit home and relax and rust” For months now, two groups of seniors including Helen and Peter have been combining physical workouts, with computer based brain training.

All part of a pilot programme to gauge whether doing the two activities together increases mental fitness, and might help prevent Alzheimers. “A 30% plus improvement in their brain processing, memory processing, speed, power and accuracy”

David Gribble from Alzheimers Australia says the findings are significant. “What it says to us is that just like physical fitness, you should stay mentally engaged and there’s research out there that says that if you’re going to do that, then longer term, that’s going to reduce the liklihood of you experiencing cognitive decline over time”

Some participants noted they were sleeping better, others were found to have a 40% improvement in their hearing. This is particularly significant in an ageing population. Sounds might go in through our ears, but the brain has to process them for us to know what the sound is. Not only is hearing loss socially isolating, the other benefit of good hearing is a well exercised brain.

“After the first few weeks, the feedback we got was fantastic” Nathan Trengrave, from the Council of the Ageing, “they were starting to remember shopping lists a little bit better, a lot of people that were shopping on the internet didn’t have to get their credit card out to type in the number because they were able to remember it”

An exercise physiologist, Nathan says we know we have to “use it or lose it” when it comes to our bodies, but it’s the same with the brain. And if that goes, it’s their independence that people also lose. “I see a lot of people in regards to their families are finding it hard to get off work because mum or dad has had a fall or something’s happenned and I guess keeping mentally active as well as physically active is going to take that burden off the family and the health care system so I guess it’a win win situation”

The other win – the workout regime didn’t have to be relentless to be effective. One group did the activities five days a week for 8 weeks, the other did them twice a week for 20 weeks, but, on average, both groups reported the same results. “We’ve got over 600 participants using the programme in western australia and obviously our aim is to try and get it into other organisations so that they can get their memberships to use it – retirement villages, public libraries should be accessing this, local councils” Already, American health insurers fund similar programmes after finding people who do brain training make fewer claims. Helen and Peter say they feel brighter, more alert, more alive.At 74, that’s great. Helen says “I feel as though I’m going somewhere”Peter says “it’s like preventative medicine”

View full article at http://www.7perth.com.au/view/today-tonight-articles/brain-training_20091218181919/

“Can you remember where you put the car keys or why you went into the kitchen?

Alzheimer’s Australia WA have been working on keeping your brain in good nick.

Dr David Gribble has spent two years looking at the best ways we can keep our brain mentally fit.”

Read the full article

Brain Training 22 April 2009

Reporter: Andrea Burns

What these women are doing is so much more than just a workout, it is science. Exercise physiologist Mitchell Sewell is keeping a close eye. These retirees are mothers, grandmothers, but today they’re unlikely guinea pigs as apart of an Australian first pilot programme, testing whether regular physical exercise, combined with computer based mental exercises can slow or even stop the clock on memory. It’s called Brain training.

Alzheimers Australia’s David Gribble says “people are always complaining they’re starting to lose the mental faculties they had when they were younger and this programme’s really designed to give it back again”.

Treadmills will get the blood pumping through the body and then comes the computer work out which is like an exercise bike for the mind.

Norma, Nola, Ruby and Helen will do body and brain exercises twice a week, for the next 20 weeks. Other groups in retirement villages will also do the programme every day for 8 weeks. These results will be assessed later.

In the U.S.A, David says programmes like these are already in use in hundreds of thousands of retirement villages. He’s confident these participants will see real changes.

“They will tell you that they are more confident and that they can remember phone numbers and people’s names better. They don’t walk into the room as often and think “why did I come in here”. All of those things that we all experience as we age and this programme is designed to address”.

http://www.7perth.com.au/view/today-tonight-articles/brain-training/

Find out more about the Posit Science Brain Fitness Program Classic HERE

Follow this link to listen to the feature demonstration of the Brain Fitness Program Classic on ABC Radio

http://blogs.abc.net.au/wa/2009/03/bulk-up-your-br.html?program=720_eoins_breakfast

The following is an excerpt from an article appearing 19 September 2008 on Bio-Medicine.org:

PERTH, Australia, Sept. 19 /PRNewswire/ — Western Australians will be the first in the country to take part in a brain fitness initiative that has been shown to improve a person’s ability to think faster, focus better and remember more.

The brain health initiative will be launched by Australia’s Aged Care Commissioner Rhonda Parker on behalf of Alzheimer’s Australia WA at the Duxton Hotel on September 19th as part of Dementia Awareness Week 2008.

More than 30 peer-reviewed papers report on randomized controlled trials using the technology now being offered in two cognitive training software programs being distributed by Alzheimer’s Australia WA. The studies show that participants using the software programs more than doubled their processing speed and had gains of more than 10 years in standardized measures of memory and attention. This has led to significant lifestyle benefits for people experiencing normal age-related changes in brain function.

Alzheimer’s Australia WA General Manager David Gribble said the programs that will be offered in Australia were developed and extensively trialled by US company Posit Science in conjunction with one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, Dr Mike Merzenich, and his team at the University of California. The programs have also been extensively researched over many years by renowned research institutions such as the Mayo Clinic, University of Southern California and Stanford University.

"The results from these studies have shown that people who went through the brain fitness programme added about 10 years to their cognitive abilities and memory functions," Mr. Gribble said.

"This meant people were more likely to live independently for longer, while reducing their health care expenditure and experience a better quality of life."

Read the entire article.

From ABC News:

Western Australians will be the first in the country to have access to a brain fitness program which promises to improve memory function and cognitive ability by 10 years.

The computer software program is being launched today by Alzheimer’s Australia, which says the programs are designed for older people with little or no experience using computers and will enable users to think faster, focus better and remember more.

Alzheimer’s Australia says that if the programs are used 5 days a week for 8 weeks, a 130 per cent improvement in listening skills is expected, along with a 300 per cent improvement in a person’s ability to process visual information.

David Gribble from Alzheimer’s Australia says one of the programs can significantly improve a person’s listening skills.

"Again clinical trial studies show that people improve their auditory processing by about 131 per cent," he said.

Mr Gribble says clinical trials have shown a 10 year improvement in memory function, while a person’s ability to process visual information can improve by 300 per cent.

"Which of course has huge benefits for things like driving, playing sport, anything that requires rapid identification of visual information will benefit from that program as well."

Read full article.

The following is an excerpt from NineMSN, Saturday 20 September 2008:

A US-designed software program set to be introduced in Australia can add an average 10 years of speed, accuracy and recall to an individual’s brain age, Alzheimer’s Australia says.
The lobby group’s West Australian branch has released the results of the two-year study to find the optimum brain-fitness plan to improve memory function and recall.

The brainchild of US neurosurgeon Mike Merzenich, the program needs to be used for 40 minutes a day, five days a week for eight weeks to have the optimum effect.

The trials, peer-reviewed in medical journals, also showed that listening skills improve by up to 131 per cent.

But Alzheimer’s Australia says even if it is not maintained on a regular basis, the benefits can last for 12 to 18 months.

Read the full article.