The results in 2006 of the “ACTIVE" Study started a big Internet buzz and a multitude of websites. Plus giving us the idea that having fun with brain games may prevent Alzheimer’s.
The ACTIVE Study divided 2,802 normal subjects over age 65 into four groups. The memory group learned strategies for remembering word lists and sequences. The reasoning group learned strategies for finding the pattern in a letter or word series and identifying the next item in a series. The speed-of-processing group learned ways to identify an object on a computer screen at increasingly brief exposures. The fourth group received no memory training.
Can You Train A Brain?
Immediately after the initial training, 87 percent of the speed-training group, 74 percent of the reasoning group and 26 percent of the memory group showed improvement in the skills taught.
Do Brains Stay Trained?
And after five years, people in each memory-skills group performed better on tests than people in the control group. The reasoning-training and speed-training groups who received booster training had the greatest benefit.
The Internet responded to this news with an avalanche of websites featuring “brain games.” Some are free, others are quite expensive. If you’d like a good selection of free memory helps and games and a review of the ones that cost, try my TOUR THE SITES website. Go to the 1000 BEST SITES in the lefthand margin and click on Brain Games.