One possible reason for the beneficial impact of education on those with Alzheimer’s is that cognitive effort enhances the health of brain cells and expands the number of connections and cells in the brain, which appear to make it more adaptable when faced with damage. The good news is that cognitive effort can have a beneficial effect on cell growth, brain health and our cognitive performance throughout our lives – not just in youth.
One of the most compelling notions about brain fitness and Alzheimer’s is the fact that brain training is non-invasive, without the unpleasant side effects patients experience with some treatments. Today’s Alzheimer’s drugs may be effective for a period of time, but the benefits of the drugs diminish over time, and there can be major side effects.
What kind of brain effort is beneficial to help increase blood flow and trigger the expansion of new connections and cells? Any kind of mental effort will improve brain fitness, as long as it is challenging and forces the brain to solve new problems. The brain’s natural tendency is to learn from experiences and then to create patterns from past experiences to help reduce the time and mental effort to solve subsequent problems. You could say that our brains are fundamentally lazy in this respect.
An ideal brain fitness program provides new challenges for a range of cognitive functions. It assesses our individual performance to devise new levels of challenge and reward, and it is something that we enjoy doing on an ongoing basis.
Dr. Shlomo Breznitz is the founder and president of CogniFit, makers of personalized brain training programs. For more information, please go to www.cognifit.com.
