Can a cheerful digitised Japanese professor help you maintain and even improve your memory?
I’d like to think so of course, and I have my shiny little DS lite to show where my money is. Motivation came in the form of Prof K helping to lower my ‘brain age’ by about 14 years over the course of a few weeks with his gentle chiding and hot tips.
Can Nintendo’s electronic games – and others, in what must be a rapidly growing and competitive market given the active aging population worldwide - do more profound things for your mind?
There is a fair amount of mainstream research in the area of exercise for the brain, primarily to discover what factors throughout your life put you at greater or lower risk of developing the dreaded Alzheimer’s or dementia. Briefly, research suggests that while people from richer families, with good education, active mid- and later lifes seem to be less likely to develop Alzheimer’s, it is never too late to do something to improve your odds. Mental stimulation in later life can be just as effective in lowering your risk of developing these afflictions as these other life factors.
Research summary (mostly from British Medical Journal article, vol. 336): whatever your age and background, exercises to improve, say, your memory can be effective, but don’t count on a memory exercise to improve another brain function such as reasoning, for example. You would need to exercise reasoning separately. Research scientists, who are professionally cautious, say that in those (typically elderly people) whose brain is only just coping, that developing one brain function may be at the expense of other perhaps more critical functions.
It seems, however, that most physicians and scientists alike support a ‘use it or lose it’ approach.
I draw two layman’s conclusions from this:
1) it’s never too late to start exercising your brain functions, and such exercises could help to reduce your risk of developing brain problems as you get older; and
2) take a holistic approach – exercise as many different facets of your mind (and body) as you can for good measure.
Me, I’m going to stick with Prof K. I’m also going to record an album, learn to speak Spanish, perfect my paragliding, try to have one lunch date in my diary every week and do a sudoku every day.
And write a blog.
patrick v
Tags: aging population, Alzheimer's, exercise, Memory, mind
