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- Neural network in silver: how does the program for maintaining mental and emotional health work?
Neural network in silver: how does the program for maintaining mental and emotional health work?
Since March, Moscow has been operating a program to preserve cognitive skills of the brain and psycho-emotional health, which has been joined by more than 20,000 Muscovites over the age of 55. The organizers of the program are the Federal Medical and Biological Agency and the Government of Moscow. They consider both courses to be a good tool for improving memory, attention, and thinking, as well as normalizing the emotional background. Izvestia got acquainted with the first results of the program.
One program — two stages
Lyudmila Soldatova, chief specialist of the Moscow Longevity Center in Bogorodskoye, looks at the monitor screen with Natalia S., who in the next half hour will answer questions from a seemingly uncomplicated intellectual test. It is necessary to determine the paired images in the picture, to solve the logical tasks proposed by the computer program to improve the cognitive functions of the brain. The woman copes quickly, and this is not surprising, because she is a biology teacher by education and has been engaged in intellectual work all her life.
Today Natalia is an average Moscow pensioner with children, grandchildren and a cottage. She is very active, but she wants to keep her mind clear. "My daughter saw an advertisement on TV for a new Moscow Longevity program to preserve brain function and said it wouldn't hurt for me to enroll here. I signed up in April, passed the tests, filled out a questionnaire, and was admitted. Today is the second lesson of this program. So, we need to compare the pictures and find the same ones... So, where was I?" says Natalia, and plunges into her studies.
The program for the preservation of cognitive skills and psychoemotional health has been operating in the capital since this March and is taking place at the sites of the Moscow Longevity offices. It consists of two courses. The first one should strengthen memory, sharpen attention and thinking in an aged Muscovite, and the other should relax the emotional background, improve sleep and lower anxiety levels. "The first stage of the cognitive health program includes 10 hours of classes. The course is designed for one and a half to two months. The second stage consists of 10 half—hour sessions, during which an aged Muscovite is relaxed with a special bandage and the bioelectric activity of the brain is recorded," says specialist Lyudmila Soldatova.
If the second part of the program is still gaining momentum, then more than 20 thousand elderly Muscovites have already worked out on intelligent simulators since March. Computer classes are open from 14:00 to 20:00, and any Muscovite over the age of 55 can enroll in the program. But before enrolling, the candidate will have to answer several questions on the Moscow Longevity website and then wait for an invitation to come to any center: a small queue has formed for the new service. However, we are assured that everyone who has passed the initial screening test is accepted. As a rule, it is not difficult, and to some extent it is similar to the second entrance test, which new participants of the program take on a computer already in the "Moscow longevity" itself.
There are six such computers in the Moscow Longevity office in Bogorodskoye. On the day of our visit, three places were empty, but at some point the door opened and a woman came in and sat down at the last computer next to it. Elena is 56 years old, she has her first class in the program. First, she was asked to answer 15 short yes or no questions from the series "Do you often forget about your plans for the day?" or "Do you complain about memory lapses?" "Can you tell me today's date, month and year?" "Do you walk to the store for shopping with or without a list?" "Do you easily remember current cases?".
The preliminary test is very important for the overall process: the computer analyzes the answers and automatically determines the brain functions that need so-called pumping. After passing this test, the program evaluates the speed and correctness of the answers and selects its own course for each age Muscovite. It is necessary to take a preliminary test to determine the characteristics of the brain. People have different problems. Some of the participants have reduced attention, some have memory, and some require logical thinking. Taking them into account, the computer program automatically selects an individual program for a person in order to prevent a decrease in the cognitive functions of the brain of older Muscovites.
— During the test, participants perform a variety of memory training exercises. For example, a computer shows two consecutive pictures or patterns, and for the correct answer it is necessary to recall the image of the previous slide. This task is aimed at training visual memory. There are also exercises to continue the logical sequence, there are many options," explains Sergey Zhatkin, head of the Bogorodskoye Moscow Longevity Center.
Young Muscovites, unite
A reproduction of a fragment of Michelangelo's fresco "The Creation of Adam" hangs on the wall of the office of Sergey Zhatkin, head of the Bogorodskoye Center for Moscow Longevity. Two hands reaching for each other. In the context of a program to preserve cognitive skills, the image takes on additional meaning. In the center, the aged ones are socialized anew with their peers. For this purpose, the class schedule of the centers includes choral singing, board games and even dancing classes. Sometimes people start to really communicate with each other, to be friends. Some participants in the program even married each other. But the main thing is that they care about their own health.
Currently, 153 people are undergoing the first stage of the cognitive skills preservation program in the center of Bogorodskoye district. With age, metabolic and other processes in the human body and in its brain slow down, and doctors and scientists recommend not to lose activity and, if possible, to learn new things as therapy.
— With a slowdown in activity and a change in a person's social circle, the cognitive reserve of the brain may begin to deplete, the consequences of which can be catastrophic, including brain damage from Alzheimer's disease or other neurodegenerative diseases. In this regard, it is necessary to give the brain a load: to keep general activity, read, walk and solve crosswords, etc. The brain must work hard," says Sergey Illarioshkin, Director of the Brain Institute of the Federal State Budgetary Scientific Institution of the National Research Center, MD.
The RANEPA Institute for Social Analysis and Forecasting analyzed medical surveillance data on Russian citizens over the age of 60 in its study of mental health a year and a half ago. Of the 36.8 thousand elderly citizens who participated in the study, many felt a sense of anxiety or depression: 49% of respondents were in moderate form, and 5% of respondents were in severe form.
Come back tomorrow
If the new program has a positive effect on the cognitive functions of older Muscovites, then it can be implemented in other Russian regions, according to the Moscow Department of Labor and Social Protection of the population. It is too early to talk about the overall results of this campaign: its second stage has not yet unfolded in all the centers of the Moscow Longevity. So the Bogorodskoye department is waiting for neurogarnits to arrive any day to take people to classes on correcting their psychoemotional state.
But the first part of the program has already been established. Young Muscovites learn how to work with the program and take the computer test over and over again, improving their results. Natalia scored only 200 points on the first day after completing it, but today she made fewer mistakes, and her personal score increased by 30%. The number of correct answers in the test is growing, and the speed of information processing is increasing. But her neighbor at the computer opposite, a gray—haired man with glasses named Yuri, shows us the final "100%" on his monitor screen, not without pride: his personal computer, apparently, works fine. Not everyone can boast of such results at that age, and Yuri is already about 60 years old.
The mental problems of the participants in this program do not coincide, but they are common to all. For example, a mother and son come to the center in Bogorodskoye to take classes on a computer simulator. She is 80 years old, and he is 60. Both complain of memory loss, and both pass almost identical computer tests. By the way, not all people feel that they started losing their memory at exactly 55 years old.
— People of different ages, from 45 to 50 years old, come to our center and are interested in the possibility of improving brain functions using our program. Just recently, a man turned out to be only 51 years old. He wanted to participate in the program, but depending on his age, a different approach to the development of cognitive abilities is needed. Therefore, we had to refuse him with the reservation that we would wait for him later," adds Sergey Zhatkin, head of the Bogorodskoye Moscow Longevity Center.
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