More and more research is showing a correlation between memory exercise and decreased cognitive decline.  Just like physical exercise, mental stimulation can improve brain function.  A healthy brain will develop new neurons until the day it dies.  Severe memory loss and the inability to create new neurons is usually a result of a disease, but memory loss and motor skill loss associated with normal aging is usually simply caused by inactivity and lack of mental stimulation.  Hence, use it or lose it.

Just as it is important to physically exercise for a healthy heart, it is important to exercise for a healthy brain through mental exercise or brain training.  It is essential to understand the difference between mental activity and brain training.  Mental activity takes place whenever one is awake and activities range from day dreaming to watching television to reading a magazine.  Brain training refers to the structured used of cognitive exercises with a goal to improve brain function.

As we grow older, our brains become more and more inactive.  After we reach age 30, most of us have begun a life of routine; reading the newspaper every morning, going to work every day, and doing the same tasks every day.  Especially in today’s world of technology, individuals rarely need to use their brains anymore for every day functions.  Think of the calculator – a device that deprives our brain of even doing the simple task of adding which is among the simplest of exercises that our brain benefits from.

Challenging your brain is essential to good brain health.  Do things that you are not good at and learn new skills.  Learn more new skills once you master the old.  These will activate areas in your brain that aren’t otherwise as activated and help create new neural pathways.  Research has shown that this may help prevent cognitive decline and even Alzheimer’s disease.

There are several day-to-day activities that can be done to improve memory such as using your non-dominant hand, playing board games, meditating, listening to music, exploring with new driving directions, and much more.  There are also several other activities that may be more time consuming, but worth the benefits they give to the brain.  These activities include taking a college course, learning a new language, learning how to play an instrument, mastering Sudoku, and many more.  All of these activities will help, but a combination of them with brain fitness software is ideal for a brain training program.  

One available software is the “It’s Never Too Late” computer program.  It is a computerized memory exercise program that offers hundreds of different mental stimulating activities that are beneficial to brain health.  Sycamore Village has purchased this program and has made it available to its residents, family members,  and  local community members to use.  One local community member, Gil Topp, has taken advantage of this service and visits Sycamore Village weekly to use the program and exercise his brain.  “I have found it to be very stimulating and I feel like it has made me more alert and has even improved my vocabulary in just the short amount of time I have been using it,” states Gil.  “The benefits I have received from using the program have been very noticeable to me,” continues Gil.

As part of our mission to promote brain health and educate our community on Alzheimer’s prevention, we welcome the complimentary use of our brain exercise program and an individualized instructed learning session to our community members by simply setting up an appointment with our Dementia Care Educator, Natalie McFarland. You can view Natalie on the Norm Greenburg Show discussing how to maintain a healthy brain by clicking below.  We would love to hear from others the activities they do to exercise their brains, and of any other success stories with using a computerized memory exercise program. 

The next time you find yourself settling on the couch to a favorite television show, try pulling out your Yahtzee game instead!  Board games are associated with a lower risk of developing dementia and can activate strategic, spatial, and memory parts of the brain, helping to form new neural pathways.  After all, wouldn’t you rather use it than lose it?

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