10/06/2025

Four Simple Strategies to Boost Your Brain Power

New research shows how easy it is to get your brain in shape

People worry about losing their memory as they get older, or worse, developing a dementing illness such as Alzheimer’s Disease. It's hard not to get caught up in a cycle of fear as you read the headlines everywhere proclaiming that this form of dementia is spreading uncontrollably like a wildfire through the aging population.

Even though there are more nuances to the data on dementia's prevalence, this does not minimize the desire that people have to keep their brains healthy and sharp. Puzzles abound on hundreds of websites and apps, all claiming to provide an antidote to the caving in of your mental skills over time. But can they work?

POINTER: The Latest Demonstration that Training Works

In a newly published paper, Baker et al. (2025) report on POINTER U.S., a two-year intervention program on 2,111 adults considered at risk for cognitive decline and/or dementia. The study compared two training programs into which participants (average age 68 years) were randomly assigned to either a structured or self-guided training. The training itself consisted of a set of lifestyle changes and activities known from previous research to address cognitive decline.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Psychology Today.