“Bird Safari: Featured in the visual-training program InSight, this game asks players to recall a specific bird — flashed on the screen for only an instant – out of a flock. InSight costs $395 U.S. online through Posit Science.”
*This article appeared, in full or in part, in the Montreal Gazette, the Vancouver Sun, the Ottawa Citizen, GlobalNational Television, the Windsor Star, the Edmonton Journal, and more.
Before I begin listing the latest computer games and expert tips on how best to improve your brain fitness, like push-ups for normal aging and forgetful minds, here are some thoughts from my grandma, a foxy eighty-something:
“Don’t tell me to do those puzzles. They just rock me into insensibility,” she said. “My brain moves too fast to begin with. In less than five minutes, I’m trying to remember when your grandpa’s next doctor’s appointment is, and whether we need coffee cream, God forbid.
“Meanwhile your grandpa starts hollering, ‘Where’s my walking stick? Where’s my hearing aid?’ And while I’m standing on my head looking for his stuff, the oatmeal pot boils over. Anyhow, you’re nuttier than a fruitcake if you think getting old is like a bowl of cherries,” she said
Fortunately for my grandmother, wisdom isn’t lost with age as easily as walking sticks.
“Some things don’t decline,” says Fergus Craik, a leading cognitive psychologist based in Toronto and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Memory.”For example, people in their 50s and 60s tend to have better vocabulary and word knowledge (than younger people). And knowledge of the world seems to hold up with age, as do skilled procedures like mental arithmetic or playing piano, if you still practice.”
