Healthy Elderly: A Randomized Control Pilot Study

A study conducted by Harvard Medical School regarding on how could exercise help your brain and what kind of exercise will help your brain to have a better result. In this article, we learn that exercises can help your brain and can also help your memory. The researchers examined different people to try to understand what exercises could help your brain using 30 minutes section. In this study, the researchers randomly evaluate people doing exercises like cardio and compared their memory and their productivity with those that didn’t any type of exercises.

Research has proven that physical activity improves cognitive function and can also improve brain function throughout a lifespan. Moreover, staying physically active has so many benefits as well. For example, doing exercise and fitness activities help build cells and natural pathways to help reduce changes in memory loss or dementia. Also, it has so many health benefits including long-term improvements to the cognitive function as the young adult reaching mid

Quadagno (2014) discusses ways cognitive abilities differ from young-adults, middle-old adults and oldest old adults. Cognitive decline can also be affected by conditions such as stroke, depression, diabetes, auditory, and vision problems. Older adults may also encounter age related cognitive decline in their daily lives. Cognitive abilities such as processing speed, episodic memory, working memory and dual task processing are abilities that researchers are aiming to improve in older adults (Basak, et al, 2008; Quadagno, 2014).

164). This non-invasive intervention uses electrodes that are placed on the scalp, to measure brain function (including brainwave pattens, auditory and visual feedback), which allows participants to observe their own brain function to enhance theor cognitive ability. For the most effective results participants were required complete a minimum of 1 to 2 sessions a week and for longer lasting improvements, at least 10 sessions a week. During each session, participants listened to sounds while playing a video game, they play the game by using only their brain. When their brain wave activity reaches the required criteria, they gain points (which acts as the reward in this appliction of operant conditioning). This type of brain training has shown to be effective as it has been used to treat mental illness, and improve cognitive ability, especially among older populations (Rabipour & Raz, 2012, p. 165).

Dementia is the loss of cognitive functioning which affects an individual’s daily life. Alzheimer’s disease is a form of dementia that slowly destroys memory and thinking and the ability to perform simple tasks. There is some research that suggests cognitive training may slow the progression of dementia. Cognitive training challenges a variety of cognitive functions such as attention, memory and speed, which is different to general brain training that people may come across in their daily life (Kanaan et al., 2014). Various limitations

Many people spend a fair amount of time on their computers, tablets, and smartphones playing games. So why not use it as an opportunity to exercise your brain? Brain training games are easy to do and offer a wide variety of simple puzzles that can be played for just a few minutes or a couple of hours at a time. They’re specifically designed to help sharpen the mind and ultimately may help players deter the development of cognitive diseases like dementia and Alzheimer’s.

The goal was to investigate the three different cognitive training areas: memory, reasoning and speed. The authors started with a baseline of participants of an average of “73.6 years old, had 13.5 years of schooling and 26% were African American.” After five years, they found that training effects with OTDI did not influence the subjects observed in the study and after the preliminary study they did a study on subjects with no diagnosis of dementia and no ADL limitations (bathing, dressing, and personal hygiene). After eliminating three of the 2,082 they worked with 2,799. The ODLT was measured by cognition and the response to verbal prompts every day and whether it led to better performance in the older

Smith et al. (2013) took a less studied approach to improving cognitive decline by testing the effects of aerobic exercise on adults (60-88 years old) already suffering from cognitive impairment. After 12 weeks of moderate exercise there was an improvement of memory and neural efficiency across all subjects.

Neurological developmental gains are maintained with the initial training of cognitive training, however after the stimulation from training commences, then the brain can possibly go back to the state it was, before cognitive training (refrence). Cognitive stimulating task might have a negative notion which cause the individual to lose interest in perusing the task further, and primarily is up to the individual for takes the tasks, factors such as neuroplasticity, age and training period is take into account before the results are recorded. There are factors that need to be considered when cognitive training commences and if the new neural and cognitive formation is durable overtime of an individual’s life and if the onset of dementia is decrease. Studies that have been discussed are not followed up with future research to confirm that the subjects did not acquire dementia making a limiting factor. Its particularly important in understanding if the neurological changes and what they represent. At this time in the research advancement it becomes hesitant to say that cognitive training can improve the intellectual capacities of an individual over the course of time and twethere the new neural capacity are prement structures. Nevertheless there are sufficient evidence that suggests that there is improvement in cognitive tasks and rapid response rates with stimuli from cogitative training within the

There are some studies that could not find a relationship between exercise and cognitive functions in people over the age of 65. For example, Sturman et al. (2005) could not find evidence that physical activity alone protects against cognitive decline in this age group. They assed 4055 adults over the age of 64 on with questions

In Buschkuehl et al. (2010), they provided a brief overview of studies that researched whether or not cognitive tasks (interventions) are effective training regimes that improve intelligence. The studies reviewed were divided into studies that used intervention approaches focused on the training of working memory (WM) and executive functions and studies which researched other approaches of intervention. Although there has been growing evidence that revealed an improvement of intelligence after some sort of intervention, there are still many unknown variables that may account for this improvement. Thus, the processes that underlie these interventions for improvement of intelligence need to be further researched in order to gain a better understanding

To determine whether or not brain training can successfully assist in successful aging, one must define what successful aging is. Successful aging can be defined as “low probability of disease and disease-related disability, high cognitive and physical functional capacity, and active engagement with life” (Rowe & Kahn, 1997). These elements are all interrelated and provide an individual with choice and independence in their later stages of life. A crucial element for successful aging is high cognitive capacity, however it is a known fact that cognitive decline is a normal part of aging (Ball, 2004). From early adulthood, individuals start showing signs of decline in important cognitive domains such as reasoning, processing speed and short term memory. These cognitive domains underpin a high cognitive capacity and heavily impact the daily activities of an aging population. Regular tasks such as driving, doing the groceries,banking, handling medication and cooking require a substantial level of cognitive functioning and without it, an aging population becomes dependent on the society around it to support them.

While they hypothesized that training can improve areas of functioning, they also stated that the skills developed from it cannot be transferred to untrained tasks. Participants were to practice reasoning, memory, planning, attention and visuospatial skills over the course of six weeks, again with the level of difficulty increasing throughout the regimen. Although the participants were able to improve specifically what they practiced, these improvements were not shown to transfer to other untrained tasks (Owen et al., 2010). Both teams present a thorough research study, however a more compelling argument was made in “Putting brain training to the test,” suggesting that while online cognitive training may improve cognitive function, those learned skills cannot be beneficially transferred to untrained tasks which in turn, does not lead to an overall improvement.

Aerobic exercise has many beneficial effects in the cognitive abilities of young adults. One of the big parts that aerobic exercise helps young adults with is learning. Young adults performing aerobic exercise experience an increase in volume in the hippocampus which helps benefit learning. The hippocampus is one of the parts in our brain responsible for our learning. Aerobic exercise through studies has been shown to stimulate this part in our brains. In “Aerobic Exercise for New Brain Cells and Cognitive Performance” the director states that aerobic exercise can double the production of new brain cells in the hippocampus. This leads to new brain connections that in turn improve the amount of information we can handle. One reason that aerobic exercise helps stimulate the hippocampus is because it also stimulates BDNF production. BDNF production is a nerve growth factor that boosts the growth of new brain cells in the hippocampus. This leads to new brain cells being form which in turn improves cognitive abilities and mood. While aerobic exercise does stimulate the hippocampus which boosts our learning, it is still important to put in mental training so the new brains cells remain and don’t die off. Through aerobic exercise young adults will be able to handle more information which in turn will help increase their performance in academics.

The paper focuses on the main factors of cognitive impairment in old age. More specifically focusing on the question does physical activity in early life have benefits for cognitive performance for cognitive aging? Physical activity is defined as “the movement of skeletal muscles, resulting in energy expenditure exceeding the resting state” and it is different from physical fitness (Blondell, Hammersley-Mather, & Veerman, 2014). Several things are thought that early-life physical activity is positively connect cognitive performance in old age (Blondell, Hammersley-Mather, & Veerman, 2014; Laurin, Verreault, Lindsay, MacPherson, & Rockwood, 2001; Lautenschlager, Cox, Flicker, Foster, Bockxmeer, Xiao, … & Almeida, 2008). In the present paper, the role of physical activity attracts attention as a promising strategy to prevent the risk of