Cross-Training Your Brain to Maintain Its Strength
With Video Games and Computer Programs, Seniors Have Fun While Keeping Their Minds Fit
Bob Edge, 82, uses a computer program that helps keep elderly minds nimble. He says it has helped gain speed in doing crossword puzzles.
(Katherine Frey - The Washington Post)
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Glenys Dyer, 82, is drawing Queen Elizabeth on the tiny screen of her Nintendo video game player. Suddenly her instructor -- a cartoon figure on the screen -- tells her to shift gears and draw a picture of herself, then read a passage from a novel aloud.
"Our children gave this game to us," explains her husband, John Dyer, 83, as he watches his wife do her daily Nintendo "Brain Age" exercises. "The concept is to help the brain with rapid calculation and rapid reading."
The Dyers, who live in the Goodwin House retirement community in Alexandria, are part of a brain health movement sweeping such communities nationwide.
Much as physical fitness buffs hit the gym daily, seniors are doing brain exercises to tone their minds. The theory -- so far with little hard science behind it -- is that mental stimulation slows memory loss and other cognitive declines associated with aging.
Encouraged by research suggesting the brain can sprout new cells and rewire existing ones late in life, senior communities are supplementing their usual lineup of bingo and art classes with new video games, Sudoku puzzles and computer activities.
"My view is if it doesn't do any harm, we've got to try it," says John Dyer, a retired nuclear engineer. "My grandmother and mother both had dementia."
In addition to their Brain Age game, the Dyers stretch their brains with several computer programs, including one called Brain Fitness that Goodwin House offers all 400 of its residents. More than 100 other retirement communities nationwide offer the software developed by neuroscientists in California, who say it improves memory by teaching the brain to interpret sounds faster and more accurately.
Over in Bowie, residents of the HeartFields Assisted Living Center are doing giant crossword puzzles together and playing virtual bowling on the Nintendo Wii, a video game that administrators hope will challenge residents' visual and motor skills.
"In the past year we have made a big push to get the mind working, not just stimulated, but actively working on topics," said Leslie Ray, the center's executive director. "That's because research is showing that keeping your brain powered up fights Alzheimer's disease."
At the senior center in Annapolis, elders have participated in a collaborative Keep Your Mind Alert class and taken classes in Spanish, opera appreciation and Civil War commanders.
"We are offering more and more activities to keep the mind alert," says Becky Batta, the center's director. "The baby boomers are coming and they demand it. They are completely different from other generations of seniors."
