Found: 22 Ways to Help Your Brain

As a former nursing home activity director and caregiver of three elderly family members, I observed that self-esteem and general well-being are strongly affected by the elder's feeling that their brains are not working. They too often simply shut down and stop trying to think or remember. In fact, there is information stored in the long term memory that is still "in there" and it created a feel-good surge when the elder realizes "I know that". To take advantage of the positive impact on brain health of recovering data from long term memory, I have written several trivia quiz books designed for activity personnel in nursing home to use to motivate elders to exercise their brain, to help them focus their thoughts and to stimulate them to participate in cognitive stimulation activities. Even a non-verbal nursing home resident that does not respond to trivia quiz questions can experience the good feeling of realizing he/she knows something when other activity participants respond. A challenge now is convincing nursings of the importance of providing regular brain exercise for residents and doing it in a positive, fun way. I hope nursing homes are given information about your web site so activity personnel can take advantage of what you offer.

You bring up an incredibly important point, which is the psychological benefit that comes from brain exercises and the importance for wellbeing of being reminded that they still "have it". I have to imagine that the "shut down" that you speak of is literally the beginning of the end and is to be avoided (or delayed) at all costs. Since aging is an inescapable part of life we will all face it, and I for one hope that I have a caregiver with as much compassion and insight as you do.

Wesley Hein
Wesley [at] lifetwo [dot] com

As an indication that I might need more brain exercise, I wrote about this site again a month later here! Back to the Sudoku!