Psychologists have developed exercises that will slow down age-related brain changes
The brain has three types of aging, and each can be matched with exercises to maintain mental activity, psychologists are sure. Guided by this, UrFU has developed a complex for slowing down age-related brain changes.
"There is data on the decrease in the number of neurons in some areas of the brain, by the age of 90 by 45 percent. An almost obligatory sign of aging is a decline in memory and attention," recalled Olga Dorogina, associate professor of the Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychophysiology.
Weighted average aging can be divided into three types.
The first one is energetic neurocognitive: a person becomes slow, single-tasking, poorly understands fast speech and new information, gets tired quickly.
Exercises for people at this stage affect the motor, emotional and sensory (tactile, auditory, visual) areas. Tasks contain rhythmic movements to music, art therapy has a positive effect.
The second type is spatial: the ability to orient in the real and internal space decreases, in a new place a person gets lost, it becomes more difficult to recognize pictures or objects, to perceive different things holistically. For example: a person read a story, but could not grasp its essence.
"Exercises to recognize noisy images will help. You can use schematic, contour, black and white pictures. It is useful to construct images, drawing a map, a room plan and the like," says Dorogina.
In the third type, the anterior parts of the large hemispheres age, there is a decrease in self-control, because the frontal lobes are involved.
In this case, experts suggest simple arithmetic tasks, reading aloud. Tasks can be very different, but the main thing is that they should be daily. The simplest, seemingly simple action - cooking - is extremely effective in improving brain activity.
"The load on one mental sphere should not be excessive, so it is necessary to combine tasks based on different mental functions: verbal alternate with non-verbal and so on," emphasized the associate professor.