Healthy and Abmornal Aging

What Is It?

Elderly people face not only physical decline but cognitive . As people get older, physical complications arise as do cognitive. In healthy aging populations, the declines are slight and can be improved with regular physical activity, healthy eating habits, community engagement and by doing cognitively demanding tasks.

In people with Alzheimer’s or dementia, the nervous system deteriorates as plaques become more present within the neural tissue. These populations are particularly sensitive, as their physical and cognitive functions are dramatically impacted. Patients with these disorders forget who their loved ones are, where they live, and whether they have completed an activity such as taking medication.

What Can Be Done?

Engaging elders with empathy, open-mindedness, and a smile can help foster positive interactions and emotions. In addition, ensuring proper nutrition and physical exercise can prevent and delay signs of cognitive aging. Cognitive remediation can assist healthy aging and dementia populations improve cognitive function in everyday life. Areas elderly and dementia patients have difficulty with include memory, attention, language, visuo-spatial skills, and executive functions. Therapy for dementia and related disorders include medications, occupational therapy, psychotherapy, environmental modifications, and living assistance.

We Suggest the Following Cognitive Exercises for Aging:

Writing in the Stars

Trains logical reasoning for use in keeping track of appointments and engaging in group activities.

Basketball in New York

Requires patient to engage in strategy and problem solving to plan actions that lead to successful completion. Also trains visuo-mental skills.

Restaurant

In this exercise, clients are presented with food orders of customers seated at the table. The goal is to correctly match each order with each customer. Therapists can adapt the number of orders given as well as the arrangement of people at the table for more of a challenge.

An American in Paris

While looking at some of Paris’s (and other cities) most appealing attractions, clients will have to remember itineraries of travelers visiting some of the world’s most coveted travel destinations.

Elephant Memory

Trains strategy techniques to memorize material without learning it by heart.

Two-Timing

This exercise trains a person’s ability to share attention between two different types of stimuli: auditory and visual.

Bird Song

To do this in an efficient manner, and since there are numerous items that are quite similar, you should set up a memorization technique relying on relevant hints.

Gulf Stream

Identify the fish that crosses the screen as fast as possible, to determine whether it corresponds to your target or not.

How Can HappyNeuron Pro Help?

HappyNeuron Pro can be used to provide cognitive stimulation to aging populations. For both healthy and abnormal aging, therapists providing cognitive remediation therapy can choose from an array of exercises that target key cognitive domains such as memory, executive function, auditory processing, visuo-spatial skills, language and computational skills. HappyNeuron Pro can be used on a device that has internet connection. We suggest using a touchscreen device, as elderly people may be afraid when using a standard desktop computer.