Grandpa, you don’t get dessert if you haven’t played “World of Warcraft” today

When my youngest daughter was in college, she seemed addicted to “World of Warcraft” and I wasn’t thrilled about it. It not seems that maybe I should've been thrilled, or at least not so negative.

For those who don’t play, or don’t have a son or daughter who has, according to Wikipedia, World of Warcraft is a "massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) With 10.2 million subscribers as of December 2011." World of Warcraft is currently the world's most-subscribed MMORPG, and holds the Guiness World Record for the most popular MMORPG by subscribers. As with other MMORPGs, players control a character avatar within a game world in third- or first-person view, exploring the landscape, fighting various monsters, completing quests, and interacting with non-player characters (NPCs) or other players.

 Ok, so what does this have to do with brain health?

 A couple of researchers, Anne McLaughlin and Jason Allaire, psychology professors at North Carolina State University, thought that the game would improve the cognitive ability in older adults.  To test their theory, as reported by the LA Times, “the researchers asked thirty-nine adults ages 60 to 77 years old to play ‘World of Warcraft’ for roughly two hours a day for a two-week period.”

They found that the two weeks of playing didn’t have much of an effect on the people who had scored well on the baseline cognitive test, but there was a significant improvement in the spatial ability and focus for those who scored low on the initial test.

The results of the study were published in the peer reviewed journal Computers in Human Behavior.
 
In an interview with The Times, Allaire said he and McLaughlin looked at several different video games before settling on World of Warcraft as the one they would use for the study.

"It met a bunch of criteria we had," he said. "Primarily that it is really engaging and cognitively complex, so we chose a game that we thought would have the best chance of exercising older adults' cognitive abilities and thereby improving them."

Another benefit to the game is that it has what Allaire described as lots of scaffolding — tutorials that help someone who is not familiar with video games figure out how to make their way around the game. It also has a customizable interface so that text could be enlarged for players who might have trouble reading small print.

So am I going to start playing World of Warcraft?  Probably not.  Why?  I'm not quite sixty.

 Here’s a link to the Tribune article: http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-world-of-warcraft-boosts-cognitive-ability-20120223,0,5231884.story

A Good Reason to Take up Piano

According to a group of Canadian scientists who specialize in learning, memory and language in children have found evidence that pre-schoolers can improve their verbal intelligence after only 20 days of classroom instruction using interactive, music-based cognitive training cartoons.

As reported in Robert Whent’s blog, “the study -- conducted at York University by Dr. Sylvain Moreno, who is now the Lead Scientist at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute (RRI) Centre for Brain Fitness, showed that the cognitive benefit was striking and consistent in 90 per cent of the children who took the four-week learning program and was additionally confirmed by brain imaging data that indicated brain changes had taken place related to the training. "Our data have confirmed a rapid transfer of cognitive benefits in young children after only 20 days of training on an interactive, music-based cognitive training program. The strength of this effect in almost all of the children was remarkable," said Dr. Moreno.”

Will this work for brain damaged adults like me?  Who knows? But I doubt that it’d hurt.  So I’m adding to my inexhaustible to-do list the idea of revisiting my piano lessons of years ago.

Here’s link to the blog posting:  http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/robert-whent/mozart-effect-children_b_1337047.html

I’ve got a brain tumor, what’s your excuse? Want the T-Shirt?

Do you love that line from Suzy Becker’s book? Want the T-shirt?  Well, now you can buy it at http://www.cafepress.com/medtees

Medtees.com is an online enterprise run by Dr. Westby Fisher, Director of Cardia Electrophysiology at NorthShore University HealthSystem at Evanston hospital. 

Their website description says it all: “At MedTees.com, we pick up where diagnosis and treatment leave off. That is, what happens AFTER the dust settles and you go home and they CAN'T fix what's wrong or the fix is tough to live with.

Life happens. Illness happens. In fact, illness will eventually be inevitable for all of us. As the Baby Boom ages, we are becoming aware that living with illness is already a reality for more and more people. Illness in America is still "in the closet." How? Conventional wisdom says if illness has to happen at all, illness should be overcome, fixed, and left behind. We have few role models and few realistic stories about living with a less-than-perfect body, or less-than-perfect health. How we choose to deal with the cards that life gives us is what this site is all about. Whether it is through humor (sometimes the best medicine), support, or just increasing awareness of the diseases themselves, MedTees.com hopes to empower people to live their lives to the fullest. This is where humor, support, patient-to-patient interaction can make the difference. A portion of our proceeds from every shirt helps support a charitable organization related to the shirt's design“

They also have a nice guarantee:  “We guarantee that 10% of proceeds go to the charity designated in the description of the section or shirt. The remainder goes (for now) to support the expenses to run this site. If our proceeds should exceed our expenses, the overage will be also applied to charities for whom merchandise is earmarked.”

Several are witty and written by patients themselves. My current personal favorite is: “The nice thing about being senile is that you can hide your own Easter Eggs.”

Zach Lederer Brain Tumor Celebrity

There is something in a story of the little guy, the long-shot, the guy bucking the odds who won’t take no for an answer that makes everybody want to root for him.  Zach Lederer is that kinda guy.

He’s also the kind of guy that’s had brain cancer not once but twice.

He’s also the guy that invented “Zaching.” 

Zaching is a phrase used to describe Zach’s pose coming out of his second brain surgery. It's a pose that visually and viscerally demonstrates that he’s going to fight cancer and with every ounce of his spirit. It says that he believes he's going to win this battle.

The attached article describes this pose he made for his Dad when he asked him to take his picture right after surgery “He said he thought, “If I make these muscles and show everyone how strong I am right now, they’ll stop worrying about me and think, ‘Oh he’ll be great.’”.

Not only has that pose captured that emotion and statement indelibly, it seems to touch everybody on a primal level who sees it.  It’s touched me that way.

And just when you think that America is a cold-hearted, dog-eat-dog society, you see an incredible swatch of the nation get behind this kid, this idea, this pose and show support.

As you may know, the pose is now a national phenomenon, a social media creature that has taken on a life of its own.  Pictures of people Zaching – from classmates, to celebrities, to the military – are posted on social media sites of all shapes and sizes.

So if you’re a brain tumor victim, what does this mean?  I think it means that fighting brain tumors are something that everybody, and I mean everybody, can support.  It means that even if folks don’t know who you are and what your background is, if they know that you’re in a dog-fight with a brain tumor or cancer, they will support you.  In a dark moment when you’re fighting pain or reduced cognitive skills or fears of the future, that’s a comforting thought. 

Does this mean that Zach is cured? Out of the woods? Going to be fine? 

No, he still has months of chemo and possibly radiation ahead of him. And while I haven’t had chemo, everything I hear from friends who’ve had chemo, and everything I read on cancer blogs tells me that Zach has some very, very tough times ahead.

And like everybody else, I’m going to be praying for him and rooting for him.

Here's a link to the article - http://ellicottcity.patch.com/articles/ellicott-city-teen-diagnosed-with-cancer-inspires-web-phenomenon - and be sure to watch the video.

Recommended Brain Books for Panicked Boomers

Are you a boomer worried about losing your cognitive edge as your grow older?  I am.  

If so, AARP has a nifty list of recommended books about brain fitness which includes:

• The Dana Guide to Brain Health, by Floyd E. Bloom, M. Flint Beal, and David J. Kupfer (Dana Press, 2006).
• The SharpBrains Guide to Brain Fitness: 18 Interviews with Scientists, Practical Advice, and Product Reviews, to Keep Your Brain Sharp, by Alvaro Fernandez and Elkhonon
• Goldberg. (SharpBrains Inc., 2009).
• Save Your Brain: The 5 Things You Must Do To Keep Your Mind Young and Sharp, by Paul Nussbaum. (McGraw-Hill, 2010)
• The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain: The Surprising Talents of the Middle-Aged Mind, by Barbara Strauch (Viking, 2010).
• The Memory Bible: An Innovative Strategy for Keeping Your Brain Young, by Gary Small (Hyperion, 2003).

I’ve read the Strauch book and the SharpBrains guide.  I like both of them for different reasons. The Ms. Strauch does a deep dive on the “grown-up” brain, which is a kind way of saying the boomer brain. As I’ve previously written, the book is choke-full of research made readable.

The SharpBrains guide is just that, a review of lots of research studies with a Cliff-Notes-like summary of each.  It’s both practical and readable.

AARP goes on to “also recommend” the following books which I haven’t read.

• The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain, by Gene Cohen (Basic Books, 2006).
• The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge (Penguin, 2007).
• Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, by John Ratey and Eric Hagerman (Little, Brown and Co., 2008).
• Think Smart: A Neuroscientist's Prescription for Improving Your Brain's Performance, by Richard Restak (Riverhead, 2010).

If you’ve read the books I haven’t, and have an opinion, please shoot me a note.

Truth is Stranger than Fiction…It’s also More Ironic

The cover story in today’s Chicago Tribune is about a young, budding opera singer, Sandra Marante, who had a seizure during a rehearsal. According to the article, “in the part of the brain that controls language, a mass of tangled blood vessels had started to bleed, triggering the seizure.” And, to make matters worse, at the hospital that night doctors “…told her that left untreated, it could be fatal.” And, “surgery, however, risked damaging her ability to memorize lyrics or ever sing again.”

In reading this I was immediately struck by how closely this paralleled the Grant Achatz story.  If you’re unfamiliar with his story or book – Life on the Line – it’s about one of the most famous and accomplished chefs in the US getting life-threatening tongue cancer. 

The Tribune story is another case of truth being both stranger than fiction and more ironic. The story’s interesting, provocative and, in the end, heart-warming.

Here’s a link: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/education/ct-met-opera-brain-20120309,0,777325.story?page=3

I also thought that Life on the Line was a great read. It combines insights into the restaurant business, with a Horatio Alger story and then ends with life-threatening cancer. While I’m sure you can find it at your local library, here’s a link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Life-Line-Chasing-Greatness-Redefining/dp/1592406971/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331315873&sr=8-1