There’s an app for almost anything these days including brain training, but the effectiveness of many of these apps are untested.
But new research between the University of Newcastle’s Hunter Medical Research Institute and the University of California has found that older people can train to prevent the decline of their brain’s executive function – which are the skills involving mental control and self-regulation.
Using a game called Luminosity to assess participants’ ability to switch between tasks, the researchers discovered while younger participants performed better, the older people improved with practice.
About half of participants aged 71 to 80 became as good as those aged 50 to 61 and a number who practised consistently became as good as the 21-year-old players.
The researchers hope the results will transfer to real-life tasks but say if you aren’t keen to take up brain training games, there are other ways to obtain the same results including maintaining an active lifestyle, being physically active, and spending time with other people.
Good to know.
