Today we are happy, Dr. Jerri Edwards, an associate professor at the University of South Florida School of Aging Studies and Co-Investigator of the interview influential ACTIVE study. Dr. Edwards was trained by Dr. K. Karlene Ball, and discover their research, such as cognitive abilities can be maintained and must be improved with age.
Alvaro Fernandez (AF): Please give our readers your main areas of research to explain.
Jerri Edwards (JE): I am particularlyinterested in how cognitive interventions may help people to avoid or at least delay functional difficulties and thus their independence longer be maintained. Most of my work is focused on the functioning of driving including assessing driving fitness among older adults and rehabilitation of cognitive decline that results in driving difficulties.
Some questions that interest me how to live healthier longer maintained? How can we improve the cognitive trainingSkills, both to improve capabilities and also slow or delay the cognitive decline? The specific cognitive abilities that I have most is processing speed, a cognitive capacity, as we will decline at an early age studied.
AF: Can you explain what the speed of cognitive processing, and why it is important to our daily lives?
JE: speed is mental processing speed. Just like a computer with a 486 processor can do a lot of things like a computer with aPentium 4, but it takes much more time they tend to slow down our heads, with age than when we were younger. We can not have the same tasks, but it takes more time. Fast processing speed is important for rapid decisions in our daily lives. If you are the driving force, if something unexpected happens, how quickly you can recognize the situation and decide how to react?
AF: Please describe how to use the study of the ACTIVE cognitive training program, and what the results foundwhen they published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in December 2006? "
JE: I was a co-investigator of the ACTIVE study, a multi-site, controlled trial with thousands of adults over sixty-five, in order to assess the effectiveness of three different methods of cognitive training with three different groups:
- The first group used a memory training including a variety of traditional techniques such as memory and mnemonic method of loci.
- SecondGroup formed in inductive reasoning skills to learn.
- The third group was exposed to programs of computer-based high-speed processing.
All three groups spent the same amount of time in their training programs, about two hours a week for 5 weeks going through exercises of increasing difficulty. The ACTIVE study is designed to keep track of the performance of participants' for several years, so after this first group received 5 weeks of training Booster sessionsafter 1 year and again after three years.
Willis and his colleagues published the results of five years were in JAMA in December and the results are very positive. All three types of cognitive programs have been shown to have an effect immediately after the program, after 3 years and under the fifth but the results showed that the group of a computer based program used for processing high-speed clear results, short and long term. People who have had a greater processing speed also showed betterPerformance on tasks of instrumental activities of daily living such as quickly find an article on a crowded pantry shelf and reading medicine bottles. They also responded faster traffic. We found that the transfer of training data in our previous studies in which the training protocol.
In short, a significant percentage of participants improved their memory, reasoning and speed of processing information on all three methods. The most impressive is that in examining fiveYears later, participants in the computer program based on fewer than a decline in capacity have been educated, as did a control group that received no cognitive training.
AF: ACTIVE The results were very impressive and contributed in large measure the amount of media coverage of our brain during the last year. However, as you've probably seen, there is much confusion about our brains to the media and the public. You can help our readersTo understand common problems: 1) Why are new programs better than, for example, crossword puzzles we?, And 2) you can have two really say that this decline can be reversed, its programs of age?
To answer the first question I would say that is not a crossword puzzle a form of cognitive training. Can be challenging, but it is a structured form of intellectual exercise that has been shown to improve specific cognitive skills - the ability of different crosswords, the 'Of course.
Regarding the second question, it is too early to say whether we reverse the decline permanently. There are many skills involved and the studies are not long enough to really compare different trajectories. What we can say is that it provides some exercises that can improve cognitive processing speed of 146-250%, and that a significant portion of these improvements, even after five years. You can not say definitively.
But I think we should be remarkablecan say that all the programs tested, the delivery of training cognitive, or what we as a "spiritual exercise", much bigger than we are of physical activity was more accustomed. Imagine being able to say that the training was 10 hours in the gym every day this month, enough to help fit in five years.
AF: Research seems to have some great opportunities for the company today. For example, would not insurance companies, or AARP, wantSponsors of research and assess whether to offer such training for their members? No major employers see the opportunity to test performance of older workers, identifying the cognitive abilities they need to improve and provide better training customized? One might suspect that a person with faster processing capabilities can make decisions faster and faster learning ...
JE: This makes sense, based on what we know. cognitive skills develop inways in which age, and some typically begin to fall in our thirties. Cognitive interventions can help train and improve skills, and studies are already indicating strongly that, where and how training can be useful. More research is needed to provide more precise and targeted interventions in a variety of environments. I suspect that we will significantly grow the field - and not just age-related priorities. Cognitive training may be useful for a varietyhealth conditions such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's patients, for example. More research will help researchers to refine the assessments and training programs.
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