Can Brain Speed Training Delay Dementia? 20-Year Medicare Study Results

 

Will your doctor GUARANTEE NOT GETTING DEMENTIA by doing this? You are at a high risk of dementia.

I bet your fuckingly incompetent stroke medical 'professionals' DID NOTHING WITH THIS: 9+ years of incompetence and still has a job. Boy, your board of directors is a shitworthy piece of world class incompetence!

This Type of Brain Training Can Keep You From Getting Dementia September 2016

One particular type of brain training exercise cut the long-term risk of dementia by 29% November 2017 

The latest here:

Can Brain Speed Training Delay Dementia? 20-Year Medicare Study Results

Key Takeaways

• Speed-of-processing training with booster sessions was tied to a lower dementia risk over a 20-year period.
• Memory and reasoning training did not show significant associations with reduced dementia risk.
• The findings provide support for developing and refining cognitive training interventions for older adults.

A subset of people who had one of three interventions in the ACTIVE trial had a reduced risk of dementia over a 20-year follow-up period, an analysis of Medicare claims showed.

Older adults in the ACTIVE trial were randomized to training in processing speed, memory, or reasoning. Those who received memory or reasoning training trended toward lower rates of dementia diagnoses over 20 years compared with controls, but the results were not significant, reported Marilyn Albert, PhD, of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, and co-authors.

Only a subgroup of people who received both speed training and subsequent booster sessions had a long-term association with dementia diagnoses (HR 0.75, 95% CI 0.59-0.95), the researchers said in Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions.

Speed-trained participants who did not have booster sessions did not have a lower risk of dementia.

"The fact that the memory or reasoning trainings did not show statistical significance in any of the analyses presented here was somewhat surprising," Albert and colleagues wrote.

Speed training was adaptive and increased in difficulty with performance; the other trainings were not, they noted. "It is possible that this led to broader brain activation, contributing to the differential findings between the intervention arms," the researchers observed.

"The findings reported here suggest that moderate cognitive training could delay the onset of dementia over subsequent years," said Richard Hodes, MD, director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA), which funded the research.

While more research needs to be done, "this promising lead may move the field further into developing effective interventions to delay or prevent onset of dementia," Hodes said in a statement.

In 1999, the ACTIVE trial randomized 2,832 older adults with a mean age of 74 to a no-contact control group or to 10 sessions of memory, reasoning, or processing speed training over 5 to 6 weeks. Half of participants who completed the training were randomly chosen to have booster sessions 11 and 35 months later.

The trial was completed in 2010. Each intervention maintained effects on its specific targeted cognitive ability through 5 years. Memory training effects were no longer present at 10 years.

In the current analysis, Albert and colleagues linked 2,021 trial participants -- representing 72.1% of the original ACTIVE sample -- to Medicare claims records through 2019, excluding Medicare Advantage beneficiaries. During the 20-year follow-up period, 77% of the ACTIVE trial population died at a mean age of 84.

The primary outcome of this analysis was a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease or related dementia that appeared in Medicare claims. Dementia diagnoses were not adjudicated.

Overall, 48.7% of participants in the control arm (239 of 491 people) had a Medicare claim for dementia, compared with 39.77% of participants who received both speed training and booster sessions (105 of 264 people).

Missing data and mortality were likely sources of bias in this study, pointed out Baptiste Leurent, PhD, of the UCL Department of Statistical Science in London, who wasn't involved with the research.

"None of the primary analyses found significant differences in dementia risk between the training groups and the control group. Although one subgroup analysis produced a significant result, this single finding is not generally regarded as strong enough evidence to demonstrate the intervention's effectiveness," Leurent wrote on the U.K. Science Media Centre website.

"Diagnoses were identified through health records rather than specialist clinical testing, so we do not know whether this training changed the underlying diseases that cause dementia or affected specific types of dementia," added Susan Kohlhaas, PhD, of Alzheimer's Research U.K. in Cambridge, England.

Still, the results may hold promise, the study authors said. "Our findings provide support for the development and refinement of cognitive training interventions for older adults, particularly those that target visual processing and divided attention abilities," noted co-author George Rebok, PhD, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in a statement.

"It is possible that adding this cognitive training to lifestyle change interventions may delay dementia onset, but that remains to be studied," Rebok said.