National study shows mind-training exercises help healthy seniors stay mentally sharp

Mind exercises can help healthy individuals over age 65 improve their memory, concentration and problem-solving skills, researchers report at the close of a federally funded study involving 2,802 seniors at six sites around the nation.

“The findings from this large-scale rigorous clinical trial put to rest the assumption that you can’t achieve substantial new learning in late adulthood,” said University of Florida psychologist Michael Marsiske, Ph.D., who traveled to Detroit to lead field studies with 481 residents of that metropolitan region.

“The cognitive improvements we observed in this group of people are significant,” said Marsiske, a faculty member with the UF Institute on Aging and the UF College of Health Professions. “We believe that through this large study, researchers have added one useful piece to the bank of resourceful strategies that older individuals can apply when needed to help them stay mentally sharp.”

Results of the study, published in the Nov. 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, also show the beneficial effects persisted for two years after the initial mind-training sessions, which were conducted two hours a day for five weeks. Study participants included 2,146 women and 686 men between the ages of 65 and 94 (average age 74), all of whom were living independently. Close to one-fourth of them were African Americans.

“The trial was highly successful in improving certain thinking and reasoning abilities in older people,” said Richard Suzman, Ph.D., associate director for behavioral and social research at the National Institute on Aging. “However, the data did not show that participants’ improvement in thinking and reasoning also improved their ability to perform everyday tasks like preparing food or handling medications. Achieving this transfer will be our next challenge.”

Karlene Ball, Ph.D., the study’s corresponding author, added, “The improvements in memory, problem solving and concentration following training were sizeable, roughly counteracting the degree of cognitive decline we would expect to see over a 7- to 14-year period among older adults without dementia.” Ball is with the department of psychology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Seniors taking part in the study were divided into four groups, three of which received either memory training, reasoning training or speed of processing training. A fourth group received no training. All participants were assessed prior to training, immediately after training and again at one and two years later.

Mind exercises that were employed included testing ability to look at patterns of letters, words or symbols to figure out what should come next in repetitive sequences. Participants were taught ways to identify a pattern and were given an opportunity to practice the strategies in individual and group exercises. Memory training included tests of ability to recall lists of items and to remember details from stories that one has heard or read. Participants were instructed how to organize word lists into meaningful categories and to form visual images and mental associations to recall words and texts.

Speed-of-processing training focused on visual search skills and the ability to identify and locate visual information quickly when it is presented simultaneously in multiple places. Participants practiced increasingly complex tasks on a computer.

While the formal training sessions were conducted over a short time, Marsiske said participants were encouraged to apply the strategies they learned to everyday life.

“All of us (researchers with this study) think that incorporating these strategies in daily life over a long time would make a positive difference,” he said.

The National Institute on Aging and the National Institute on Nursing Research, both branches of the National Institutes of Health, funded the study aptly named the ACTIVE trials---an acronym for Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elders.

“This study, in my view, reflects the interest of NIH in conducting rigorous training studies to obtain information that may inform the way health professionals care for the elderly,” Marsiske said.

“Follow-up studies may help us determine whether the cognitive benefits that we now know can result from effective training can help to reduce the rates of decline in mental function among people 65 and older.”