One thing to do right now to keep your brain healthy
by Beth
I am pleased to introduce Mary A. Leary, PhD, vice president of Easter Seals Business Innovation & Advancement and its Transportation Group, as a guest blogger today.
Train Your Brain
by Mary Leary
Brain health is pretty important to me. Not just because I work at Easter Seals, but especially because of things I’ve witnessed in my own family.
Thirteen years ago I was working in the information technology industry and feeling helpless as I witnessed my father and grandmother struggle with dementia. Dad had been a successful social entrepreneur who launched schools for children with learning disabilities way before the field of special education came into being. My mother’s mother was the quintessential southern grandma: pound cake, chicken oyster gumbo and shrimp Creole was always waiting when we visited her in Florida. My father sustained a traumatic brain injury from an accident, and I watched as it slowly changed his—and my mother’s—life. In the meantime, my grandmother’s steadily increasing dementia made it impossible for her to stay living on her own. Observing these events unfolding before my eyes motivated me to change my career. I wanted to find ways to make a difference, especially for people who struggle with brain health issues. I decided to get into the field of aging services, and I am now a gerontologist, driving our work in brain health here at Easter Seals.
This journey is one I am finding more amazing each and every day. New and emerging products can help people who have sustained injuries or who have a neuro-cognitive condition like dementia, but that’s not all: people who are fit and well can do things today to maintain and improve their brain, too.
The proven science behind brain fitness is why Easter Seals has teamed up with our friends at Posit Science to start a special Train Your Brain program. We launched the Train Your Brain program online last year along with the Easter Seals Brain Health Center to give folks a chance to learn about brain training exercises they can do in the comfort of their own home or office.
Train Your Brain was such a success that we are continuing it into 2014 with many new features, including courses that target specific exercises for specific goals or conditions and a new navigation improvement exercise. Over the next six months, Easter Seals will be launching a number of new initiatives around brain health with new partners and refreshing information on our Brain Health Center webpage, but you can get started training your brain right now: our special offer and relationship with Posit Science makes it easy for you to try some of these exercises out for free. After that, sign up for a subscription and you’ll be continuing the spirit of giving: for every gift subscription you buy now (only $96 for a year subscription) Posit Science will contribute $20 to Easter Seals. Not only that, but Posit Science will also provide a general access license for Easter Seals to provide to a soldier or veteran in its programs supporting those injured in service to our nation. Take advantage of this offer and start your Brain Training New Year’s Resolution now.
January 2nd, 2016 at 1:02 pm
No history of dementias in the family, but would like to try the free brain exercise mentioned in your website.
January 6th, 2014 at 7:27 am
I wanted to try the free offer, but there was so much to sign, giving information several places, and it was really unclear through reading the loooong information pages, including info about closing an account— it was just too much. I’d like to try brain games for free, but I’d like to be real sure it IS free. I don’t see why I should, while trying a “free” service, be the person also required to make sure I get erased from the pay site without getting a bill next month. It is just not at all clear. And I have no such money to spend on a program like this, although it would be nice.
Something like this, brain games offered “for free!” should be simple, easily accessible and easily understood.