Mental drills found not to help seniors with future tasks

A minimum of 10 hours of mental exercises helped healthy seniors score better on tests five years later, but the drills showed little carry-over to everyday life, according to the largest and longest test of brain training.

Researchers had hoped to show that simple paper-and-pencil and computer drills would help keep seniors physically independent as they aged. But the training did not help most seniors perform everyday tasks such as shopping and managing money better than those who received no training, the research found.

Still, researchers said the study offered hints that a broader and more extensive training program could help ward off decline in less-healthy older adults.

"A broader-based activity might have more impact," said Richard Suzman, director of a program at the National Institute on Aging that funded the $15 million study, which appears in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.

The research involved 2,800 men and women in six cities -- Boston; Baltimore; Birmingham, Ala.; Detroit; Indianapolis; and State College, Pa.

Participants were randomly assigned to 10 training sessions in either memory, reasoning, or speedy mental processing, and were tested before and after.

The memory training included organizing a 15-item grocery list into categories to make it easier to remember items. The reasoning training taught participants how to see patterns in everyday tasks such as bus schedules and taking medicines at different doses and times. The speed training had participants quickly identify flashing objects on a computer.

Nearly 90 percent of the speed training group, 74 percent of the reasoning group, and 26 percent of the memory group showed almost immediate improvements in tests of the mental functions they were trained in. The improvements in most cases lasted throughout the study.

After five years, the participants assessed their ability to perform everyday tasks such as shopping, driving, and managing their finances. The researchers rated the participants in their everyday functioning.

Only the group that received reasoning training reported substantially less decline in everyday tasks than the comparison group.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.