Page 12 - Mind Games The Aging Brain and How to Keep it Healthy

Preface • xi

most mental growth for you. You’ll be able to apply these
learning techniques and strategies to all aspects of your life—
excelling at work, returning to school, learning a hobby, over-
coming drastic changes in your health, and more. This book
is designed for middle-aged adults, senior citizens, healthcare
professionals, and home caregivers.

THE RESEARCH BASIS

The Seattle Longitudinal Study, a program conducted for
more than 40 years by K. Warner Schaie, PhD., an Evan Pugh
Professor at Pennsylvania State University, charted the course
of selected cognitive abilities as the study population aged.
After noting the decline in mental acuity in elders, Schaie,
along with Dr. Sherry Willis, instituted a five-hour training
session with specific mental exercises. The exercises ad-
dressed inductive reasoning techniques and spatial relation-
ship skills, among others. After that period, the majority of
the people trained demonstrated that they had regained and
could continue to maintain the same mental agility they had
exhibited 14 years ago.
Based on Schaie’s work, the results of comparable re-
search, and our combined 47 years of teaching expertise,
this text is designed to assist you in regaining and main-
taining the mental agility you may have lost. It also will help
you successfully pursue lifelong learning.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
Chapter 1 begins with a look at how you as an individual
prefer to learn. Chapters 2 through 4 continue with a physi-
cal description of how the brain functions. You then exam-
ine the effects commonly associated with the aging process
(Chapter 5) and then rapidly proceed to specific measures
you easily can use to regain and maintain mental agility
(Chapters 6 and 7). This text builds a concrete foundation by
explaining the premise on which all of the learning and re-
tention strategies are based.