Everyone dreads loosing their wit, and
as we grow older that fear becomes more immediate. Fortunately we
have many examples of active men and women who retained their mental
agility throughout a long life. For example George Burns was still
enjoying his work in show business when he was 100 years old.
A recent study presented at the meeting
of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago, Illinois in October
suggested that stimulating the mind with internet research helps to
improve mental conditioning. MSNBC published an article about the
findings which you can read at the following link. Internet alters
older brains in just one week
This article claimed that subjects
displayed increased cognitive function after only a week of
conducting simple searches on the internet. This result seems to
support other recent findings concerning the human brain. Scientific
America published an article in March of this year about a study that
discussed how mental exercise helps us to retain new brain cells. Thats right, studies in the early 90's demonstrated
that adult mammalian brains are still actively churning out new brain
cells. The rate at which these cells are produced depends on the
amount of exercise a person gets. These new cells are not always
incorporated into the active brain however. For this to happen a
person needs to challenge themselves intellectually. So to stay fit
mentally, it is important to be both physically and mentally active.
News like this is no surprise to us at
Summer Breeze Haven, and we are pleased to be able to invite our
residents to join a group exercise activity every morning. We also
provide a game table with several games the residents can challenge
each other with. And we provide a complementary broadband wireless
internet connection with a common computer for them to use if they do
not have a personal computer.