Making meals, paying bills, phoning friends, cleaning house, handling personal hygiene—these day-to-day activities may seem mundane. But as we age, the ability to keep doing them is key to our continued independence. When waning brainpower makes it hard to handle such tasks of daily living, quality of life declines…so of course we want to do whatever we can to hang onto our cognitive skills.

Good news: Simple kinds of brain training can help us maintain or even improve our mental skills—and according to an exciting new study, training for just 10 hours can bring benefits that last for 10 years!

Participants included 2,832 men and women who at the start of the study had an average age of 74 and were living independently. They were randomly assigned to one of four groups. The control group got no training. The others (the “intervention” groups) were asked to attend 10 training sessions lasting 60 to 75 minutes each, spread over five to six weeks…and some of these participants also attended four additional “booster” sessions one to three years later.

Training was done in small groups and consisted of instruction and practice aimed at improving one of three types of cognitive skills…

Speed of processing—the ability to identify and locate visual information quickly, a skill that allows you to look up phone numbers, drive safely, etc.

Reasoning—the ability to solve problems that follow patterns, such as reading bus schedules or filling out order forms.

Memory—the ability to remember word lists, sequences of items and the main ideas in stories.

Participants’ cognitive skills and ability to perform tasks of daily living were assessed through various tests and self-reports at the start of the study and periodically for 10 years thereafter. All the interventions produced immediate improvement in the specific skills in which participants were trained. But what was really stunning was how long-lasting the benefits were, especially considering the training’s modest investment of time and effort. After 10 years, participants in all three intervention groups reported having less difficulty with daily tasks than the control group. At an average age of 82, about 60% of intervention group members reported that they were able to handle daily tasks as well as or even better than they had at the start of the study… fewer than half of control group members could make this claim.

On objective tests of skills, the intervention groups again came out ahead…

Speed of processing: After 10 years, 71% of group members were still performing at or above the levels they had demonstrated at the start of the study, compared with only 49% of the control group. Those who had booster training did especially well.

Reasoning: After 10 years, 74% of this group was still performing at or above their starting level, compared with 62% of the control group. Again, those who had booster training did particularly well.

Memory: Here the results were not as dramatic. Training improved memory for five years…though after 10 years, there was no significant difference between the intervention group and the control group. But five years of better memory for a few hours of work is still a good deal, don’t you think?

Why this is exciting news: This study is among the first to show that cognitive training actually translates to improvements in daily functioning—improvements that can help seniors maintain their independence. As the population continues to age, the number of older people with cognitive impairment is expected to skyrocket. The study authors estimate that if interventions were able to delay onset of cognitive impairment by six years, the number of people affected with dementia by the year 2050 would be reduced by more than one-third.

Train your brain: One of the training programs used in this study, speed of processing training, is now commercially available from Posit Science. Study leader George W. Rebok, MA, PhD, a professor at the Center on Aging and Health of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, said that the other two programs, memory training and reasoning training, are not yet commercially available, but an online version of the memory training is currently in development. In addition, a number of universities have faculty involved in mental training research—so you might contact your local university to inquire about such programs.

You can do a lot on your own to protect your brainpower by keeping your mind active and engaged. Dr. Rebok said, “Just as you might take the stairs instead of an elevator to keep your body strong, think of things that you can do every day to keep your mind strong. Try memorizing the items on your grocery list before you go to the store, then see how many you can remember before you need to refer to the list. Try doing mental calculations in your head before reaching for the calculator. Or read an article and then try to summarize the main points for a friend. Be creative! Anything you can do to challenge yourself mentally may help give your brain a boost.”

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