Category Archives: mild cognitive impairment

MemTrax: The Indispensable Memory Screening Test!

Memory declines with aging and some memory loss may be an early warning sign for neurodegenerative disease, including some forms of dementia such as Alzheimer’s disease. By detecting this type of disease as early as possible, we can act when treatments are the most effective. MemTrax aims to detect memory impairment. Based on 10 years [...]

November is National Family Caregivers Month

Watching a family member struggle pains us all, especially when there is little we can do personally to alleviate their ailment. Unfortunately one of the most common issues facing the aging population is being diagnosed with dementia, cognitive impairment, or Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia. Alzheimer’s causes a person [...]

Preventing Alzheimer’s Disease and Cognitive Decline

A response to The New York Times article, “Years Later, No Magic Bullet Against Alzheimer’s Disease”, dated Aug 28, 2010 based on the NIH Report “Preventing Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline” from Dr. Peter Magaro. In late spring 2010, the National Institute for Health (NIH) produced a review of research on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and [...]

Cognitive Ability is More Important than Age

In neuroscience news this week, a newly published study by Scott Huettel, Ph.D. (Associate Professor of psychology and neuroscience and director of the Duke Center for Neuroeconomic Studies) attempts to help disprove the myth that simply aging makes us inferior at financial decision making compared to our younger counterparts. Dr. Huettel’s study was published earlier [...]

Living Life Purposefully Might Ward Off Alzheimer’s

A new study published in this month’s issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry uncovers that people who say their lives have a purpose are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease or its precursor, mild cognitive impairment. The study was designed to test whether a positive attitude and purposeful life has a positive effect on [...]

Progressing from MCI to Alzheimer’s Disease

It’s long been known by the medical and scientific community that not all people with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) will go on to develop Alzheimer’s Disease. We do know, however, that MCI is typically a precursor to all Alzheimer’s Disease cases.  For patients with MCI, predicting their likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s Disease can be a [...]

Alzheimer’s Rate Higher in NFL Players

Yesterday the New York Times reported on a study commissioned by the National Football League. The findings were a big concern for NFL players.  It seems Alzheimer’s disease or similar memory-related diseases appear to have been diagnosed in the league’s former players vastly more often than in the national population — including a rate of [...]

A Warning Sign of Something Worse?

Scientific American posted an interesting article that proposed to put a predictive time line on the development of Alzheimer’s disease. Read about it here. Whether it’s decision making, judgment, basic math, memory loss  or other brain function, it is increasingly important to stimulate all these cognitive capabilities on a regular basis. One is rarely used [...]

Better tools for Cognitive Remediation Programs

The 5th annual Games for Health Conference was held in Boston.  It was co-sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, from whom HAPPYneuron was a proud award recipient last year. I presented about enabling better tools for professionally guided Cognitive Remediation programs. The slides can be found here…..

Increased mortality risk for cognitively impaired persons

According to a new, long-term research study by neurological experts at the Alzheimer’s Disease Center at Rush University Medical Center, both African-American and white older patients with Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment have an increased risk of mortality.  Research results were published in the June 2009 issue of Archives of Neurology. Alzheimer’s disease has [...]