All of us who are lucky enough to live a long life will experience some form of age-related cognitive decline. This is not indicative of developing a dementia, but nonetheless may take the form of a decline in memory that makes us feel forgetful. A change in our visual spatial skills may make parking challenging. A weakening in our ability to tune out distractions may make it hard to concentrate.
Slight changes in our language and problem-solving abilities sometimes causes us to fall victim to scams targeting seniors. While not significant enough to impair our ability to function, these slight but noticeable changes are simply signs of an aging healthy brain, no more surprising than needing reading glasses in our 50s.
The question is, can we embrace that as a badge of honor, which frees us up to talk openly about what helps and what doesn’t, which is the usual approach for non-cognitive aging issues such as joint pain and difficulty sleeping? If you’re feeling inspired and ready to take action to slow this cognitive decline, now is the perfect time. Cognitive training is not simply doing crossword puzzles or playing games on our phones.
One of the best steps you can take is to sign up for a cognitive training course. The right kind of cognitive stimulation is critical. Just like we exercise our bodies to be as strong as possible as we age, there are specific exercises we can do to have our cognition as strong as possible!
A rigorous curriculum of these exercises strengthens each of the areas of our cognition that we count on every day. These areas include:
- Reaction Time
- Visual Spatial Skills
- Attention & Concentration
- Memory (4 different types)
- Language
- Problem
Solving We are very lucky to have access to fun and engaging cognitive training classes in the Flint and Genesee County area, licensed through the New England Cognitive Center and facilitated by the Detroit Jewish Family Service staff and Flint Jewish Federation Staff.
If you would like to learn more EMAIL Susan Low at shlow@sbcglobal.net and REGISTER for one of the ZOOM presentations by Lynn Breuer LMSW, CDP who will show us how we can strengthen our overall cognition to help us age well.
ZOOM Informational sessions will be held:
Tuesday, November 8th at 7:00pm
Thursday, December 8th at 2:30pm
Classes will be forming soon, consisting of fun, challenging, research-provenexercises for your brain. And best of all…there’s no workout clothes required!
