Brain fitness program may ease cognitive impairment in elderly
‘Designed to sharpen minds’
NEW YORK, Feb 20, (RTRS): Many elderly patients with mild cognitive impairment experienced better brain function after a “fitness” program designed to sharpen their minds, a US study suggests.
Researchers put 127 elderly people on what they called a brain fitness regimen for 12 weeks that included meditation training, cognitive behavior therapy, and education about the Mediterranean diet, exercise, stress reduction and proper sleep habits.
By the end of the program, 84 percent of participants experienced significant improvements in cognitive function, researchers reported in a paper released online Feb 5 in the Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Among the random sample of 17 patients who received magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans at the beginning and end of the program, 12 had either no atrophy during the study or some growth in brain volume in their hippocampus, the region responsible for memory.
“You can choose a lifestyle that promotes rapid brain atrophy and dementia or one that accelerates brain growth and vitality,” said lead study author Dr Majid Fotuhi, a researcher at NeuroGrow Brain Fitness Center in McLean, Virginia, and at Johns Hopkins Medicine.
“You need to decide if you can make choices that will rejuvenate your brain on a daily basis,” Fotuhi added by email.
Fotuhi and colleagues tested their brain fitness program in a group of elderly patients who were 71 years old on average.
At the start of the program, patients underwent standardized neurology evaluations to determine and address any potential medical causes for memory loss and cognitive impairment such as sleep apnea, depression or vitamin B12 deficiency.
Every participant also underwent MRI and brain mapping at the start of the program.
Then each week for the next three months, they all got two hours of cognitive skills training and neurofeedback therapy, which used sound and images to prompt the brain’s circuits to work and then to rest. They also had one hour a week of counseling and coaching on lifestyle changes that are linked to better brain health.
Overall, 84 percent of patients had statistically significant improvements in at least three out of 10 areas of cognitive function, while another 9 percent had significant gains in at least two areas.
Among the subset of people who got follow-up MRIs at the end of the study, 9 of 17 patients had at least a 1 percent expansion in the volume of the hippocampus, enough to dial back the brain’s age by several years and improve cognitive abilities.