You Should Teach An Old Dog New Tricks (and do them yourself too!)

We've all heard that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. That may be true, unless of course the old dog is motivated! Same for us it turns out.

A study on the effect of formal mental training on elderly volunteers, with an average age of 73 at the start of the study, showed the brain appears to benefit from regular exercise, even as we age. After 5 years of training, a positive effect was seen when evaluating the subjects' ability to do the activities of daily living.

The training involved using things like mnemonics, acronyms and rhymes to aid memory; however, the author of the study believes other mental exercises, such as doing Soduko puzzles, would be effective as well, especially if done regularly. The research is being hailed as showing promise as a non-drug treatment to combat declines associated with aging.

Journal of the American Medical Association, December 2006