Ladies and Gentlemen, today I come before you to discuss Aging and staying mentally active. First, I want to tell you about David Snowden who was the director for the Nun Study which involved hundreds of nuns in aging (Belluck, 2001). He wrote the book “Aging Gracefully,” which discusses aging and disease of old age and how the nuns tend to keep their mental faculties even when diagnosed as Sister Mary was with dementia. Sister Mary who donated her brain after she died wanted to continue to educate after she passed. One of the most important things about the research is what the nuns say throughout their lives, that is “we must stay active.” We all know that physical exercise makes us stronger and research has concluded that physical exercise
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Should we walk more or do more challenging puzzles? Dr. Scott McGinnis at Harvard Medical School provides a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine that tried to answer that question. The study proposed physical exercise combined with computer work or educational DVD’s. After 12 weeks the thinking tests showed improvement to all but did not show any improvement between the participants. They concluded that the amount of activity needed for brain health is stimuli and that it is more important to learn the type of activity that engages the brain each week (Godman, 2013). The study also concluded that the brain shrinkage is far less in those people who engage in exercise by 40% in some people (Godman, 2013). I also talked with Dr. Dennis Spratt who confirms that it is likely that physical exercise can improve regions in the brain and stimulate the production of new cells which can help in the study of dementia. Godman stated the same in her article (Godman, 2013). What I understand from this research is that not only do we need to be physically active to stay healthy, we must also exercise our …show more content…
We will survey our residents and their families one time monthly to see how each activity is helping (or not) and to see what we need to tweak as we move forward. Please share in my excitement of this new opportunity to help our residents. Let us take the time now to vote yes to begin the program and begin planning the first
Should we walk more or do more challenging puzzles? Dr. Scott McGinnis at Harvard Medical School provides a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine that tried to answer that question. The study proposed physical exercise combined with computer work or educational DVD’s. After 12 weeks the thinking tests showed improvement to all but did not show any improvement between the participants. They concluded that the amount of activity needed for brain health is stimuli and that it is more important to learn the type of activity that engages the brain each week (Godman, 2013). The study also concluded that the brain shrinkage is far less in those people who engage in exercise by 40% in some people (Godman, 2013). I also talked with Dr. Dennis Spratt who confirms that it is likely that physical exercise can improve regions in the brain and stimulate the production of new cells which can help in the study of dementia. Godman stated the same in her article (Godman, 2013). What I understand from this research is that not only do we need to be physically active to stay healthy, we must also exercise our …show more content…
We will survey our residents and their families one time monthly to see how each activity is helping (or not) and to see what we need to tweak as we move forward. Please share in my excitement of this new opportunity to help our residents. Let us take the time now to vote yes to begin the program and begin planning the first