title: Maintaining older brain functionality: A targeted review.
abstract: The unprecedented growth in the number of older adults in our society is accompanied by the exponential increase in the number of elderly people who will suffer cognitive decline and dementia in the next decades. This will create an enormous cost for governments, families and individuals. Brain plasticity and its role in brain adaptation to the process of aging is influenced by other changes as a result of co-morbidities, environmental factors, personality traits (psychosocial variables) and genetic and epigenetic factors. This review summarizes recent findings obtained mostly from interventional studies that aim to prevent and/or delay age-related cognitive decline in healthy adults. There are a multitude of such studies. In this paper, we focused our review on physical activity, computerized cognitive training and social enhancement interventions on improving cognition, physical health, independent living and wellbeing of older adults. The methodological limitations of some of these studies, and the need for new multi-domain synergistic interventions, based on current advances in neuroscience and social-brain theories, are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Studies on Ageing and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Group, Department of Basic Psychology II, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Madrid, Spain. Electronic address: mballesteros@psi.uned.es.
authors.forename: Soledad
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ballesteros
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, University Hospital, Ludwig-Maximilian-University, Munich, Germany.
authors.forename: Eduard
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Kraft
authors.affiliation: Institute of Electronics Engineering and Telematics of Aveiro and Department of Economics, Management and Industrial Engineering, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal.
authors.forename: Silvina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Santana
authors.affiliation: Research Department, Community Clubs for Elders, Jerusalem, Israel.
authors.forename: Chariklia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Tziraki
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000502:physiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D015444:Exercise / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008959:Models, Neurological; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity; D018910:Video Games
keywords: Aging; Cognitive training; Dance; Information and communication technology; Neuroplasticity; Physical activity; Physical exercise; Social networks; Social-brain; Tai Chi; Video games