The Program That Boosts Older Adults’ Cognition By +55%

A lot of health advice aimed at people over the age of 65 is often focused on quite existentially critical things, such as blood pressure (especially for men), bone density (especially for women), and other things that make a very clear difference to mortality.

In other words, the main focus is “don’t die”.

Which is a laudable objective in general, but to actually live fully rather than merely survive means also taking care of aspects of health that are only more loosely linked to mortality, such as cognitive health.

In other words, keeping our minds sharp.

It’s time to get with the program

Researchers (Dr. Lucia Crivelli et al.) did a 2-year randomized controlled trial that found that a structured lifestyle program improved overall memory and thinking skills by about 55% more per year than general health advice in older adults at risk of cognitive decline.

1,065 adults aged 60–77 from 11 American countries took part, making it the first large-scale brain health prevention trial of its kind.

You may be wondering: what did they do?

We won’t keep it a mystery! The program included:

• Supervised exercise four days a week
  • Which benefits come rolling in quite quickly: How Your Exercise Today Gives A Brain Boost Tomorrow
• Personalized counseling based on the MIND diet, adapted to local foods and affordability.
  • That stands for the Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay, which you can read about here: Four Ways To Upgrade The Mediterranean Diet
• Exercise sessions incorporating dances such as salsa and tango
  • See for example: Dancing vs Parkinson’s Depression
• Computer-based cognitive training
  • For example: Sitting & Your Brain: Time To Take A Seat?
• Regular monitoring of blood pressure, weight, and blood sugar
  • Because, as regular 10almonds readers will know, Good (Or Bad) Health Starts With Your Blood
• Small-group meetings to encourage social engagement
  • This is critical, and can be learned about here: How To Beat Loneliness & Isolation

The greatest benefits were enjoyed in memory, processing speed, executive function, and planning.

For more on those very important things, see:

• How To Boost Your Memory Immediately (Without Supplements)
• Online Reaction Tests & Women’s Cognitive Health (Test Yours!)
• The Other “Executive Functions” (And What Happens When They Dysfunction)
• How (And Why) To Train Your Pre-Frontal Cortex

Notably, the benefits were similar regardless of participants’ age, education level, ethnicity, or genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

You can read the paper in full, here: Multidomain lifestyle intervention for the prevention of cognitive decline in at-risk older adults in Latin America (LatAm-FINGERS): a single-blind, multicentre, randomised controlled trial

Want to learn more?

If you’d like to get going with a brain-boosting program of your own, you might want to consider:

• Do Try This At Home: The 12-Week Brain Fitness Program
• Synergistic Brain-Training
• The Physical Exercises That Build Your Brain
• Sharper Minder & Body In 3 Weeks With 1 Supplement
• Seven Exercises To Strengthen Your Brain
• Ways To Boost Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF)
• Reading As A Cognitive Exercise ← there are specific tips here for ensuring your reading is (and remains) cognitively beneficial

Enjoy!