Brain-fitness industry grows as baby-boomers work to stay sharp.
December 7th 2009 20:35
Signature Tune
By Linda Nguyen, Canwest News Service
For some people, it's a cup of coffee. For others, it's a jog or a hearty breakfast. But for 88-year-old Jean Goldstein, her day can't start until she's finished her daily crossword puzzle.
``It's like a fix,'' she said from her Toronto home. ``I do them and enjoy them. I think it does help with keeping myself sharp.''
Whether it's a crossword puzzle, Sudoku or a computer game, the ``brain fitness'' industry is on track to grow by $1 billion to $5 billion worldwide by 2015 due to the growing segment of baby boomers, according to U.S. market research firm SharpBrains.
Baby boomers and seniors have always been encouraged to keep their bodies healthy and fit to offset diseases and ailments associated with old age. But experts say there needs to be a bigger push on exercising brains for mental and intellectual health.
Goldstein runs a monthly group called Brain Teasers for two dozen seniors in their 70s and 80s. At the meetings, she hands out anagram sheets, word puzzles, books and offers Internet games to challenge the seniors mentally.
``In the beginning, some don't even have a clue of how to do them,'' she said. ``Until I get them thinking out of the box. Even though they go `Oh my god,' they like doing them.''
Last week, one of the world's leading centres for aging and brain research announced it will also be getting into the brain-fitness market, backing a company called Cogniciti to develop scientifically proven computer games that will help with mental fitness.
``What we're seeing across the world are methods not just to keep our bodies fit, but to keep our brains fit, too,'' said Bill Reichman, the president and CEO of Baycrest in Toronto.
Brain fitness games can include activities that improve and maintain one's memory, reasoning, attention and speed of processing.
Reichman said the games rely on two biological principles: the brain's ability to grow new nerve cells, called neurogenesis, and its ability to grow connections between different brain cells, called neuroplasticity.
He said there have been studies that show continually stimulating and challenging one's brain can delay the effects of aging and some symptoms of age- related ailments, such as Alzheimer's disease.
``If by exercising our brains, we build more connectivity between our cells, then that helps us develop cognitive reserve. When you get Alzheimer's, it takes a decade or two before the onset of symptoms (start) to show,'' said Reichman. ``We're hoping to take advantage of cognitive reserve and build up the connectivity.''
Although the popularity of video games like Nintendo's Brain Age has surged, even playing a memory test on a computer or learning a new language or musical instrument could help with brain fitness, said Mercedes Hughes, a public education co-ordinator with the Alzheimer Society of Toronto.
``The concept still is trying to develop connections between brain cells to equalize the damage going on by Alzheimer's. By using your brain in a different way, and thinking about what you're doing when doing something procedural can help,'' she said. ``Like brushing your teeth with your eyes closed. It forces you to be uncomfortable and more aware of your actions.''
Hughes said Alzheimer's attacks brain cells causing them to die, but by developing more cells, the ones that are left can compensate for a longer period of time.
``When we're younger we're learning quite intensively,'' she said. ``By middle age, we're not learning intensively anymore and just using skills we've already mastered. That's why it's important to stretch your brain.''
Brain fitness games also have the potential to improve one's emotional health, said Mark Baldwin, a psychology professor at McGill University in Montreal.
Baldwin has developed a number of computer games based on keeping a brain active physiologically, to improve it psychologically.
``It's about practising or using games to train beneficial habits of thought, '' he said.
One his games gets a user to search and click on a single smiling face in an array of threatening, frowning faces. Baldwin said participants who played this game for five or 10 minutes a few times a week reported ``feeling good'' throughout the day. The participants also had less stress hormones in their bodies.
He likened this to a ``use or lose it'' concept, where people can teach their brains to practise specific skills, the same way one would train for a sport or practice a musical instrument.
``It's about practising or using games to train beneficial habits of thought, '' he said. ``The research we've done shows that people focus too much attention on their environment and stress, that it ends up being a vicious cycle of them feeling threatened all the time.''
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