Brain Awareness Week

Brain health is a topic we have covered extensively here at Care At Home Services. From Brain Games, Alzheimer’s Research and Dementia Risk Prevention, to Continuing Your Education and Brain Terms & Knowledge, we know that mental health is important to living a long and fulfilling life.

A great resource for you to download and get to know more about the brain is The Brain Facts Book from BrainFacts.org (PDF), which covers topics from the basic anatomy of the brain to brain research and treating brain disorders.

Some great facts from the book include:

• Once people reach 70 they may start to become more forgetful with things like people’s names, where they parked, or phone numbers and addresses
• Long-term studies of the nervous system, which started decades ago, are starting to bear results and combined with modern technology, give a better understanding of how the brain ages
• The brain reaches its maximum weight near our 20th birthday
• Normal aging does not result in widespread neuron loss, which distinguishes normal aging from neurodegenerative diseases
• As we age we may become slower at some tasks but better at others like our vocabulary development
• Studies on rats show that a more challenging and stimulating environment benefits mental function later in life

While much research has been done we are still getting a clearer idea of how the human brain ages and how this impacts us as we grow older. There is much research left to be done and much more to even begin before we have a clear understanding of how our brains truly age and what internal and external factors influence our cognitive abilities.

BONUS: Here is a great link for a fun activity: Building a Brain Hemisphere Hat

If you have any concerns or would like some help living more comfortably at home, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at 1-866-982-2737 and speak with some about setting up an at home care assessment today.