ageless grace

Ageless Grace's Denise Medved joins Suzanne to talk about caregivers and family members doing brain exercises together to improve cognitive health. 

Denise says, "The program can help you maintain your cognitive health. It can help you improve your cognitive health and it can delay any decline that has already started. It won't cure it, it won't go back and fix it, but it will delay it. We've had some research studies that show even in eight weeks of doing it three times a week, as opposed to every day, that they improved or maintained their cognitive function. Most improved."

"Mass. General Hospital in Boston has created a program to support caregivers, not professional caregivers, but family caregivers. And the program that they use is Ageless Grace. They help the caregivers learn a few tools they could use with their mom or their dad or whoever they're caring for. But more importantly, the caregivers gets to do what I call blowing off some steam, uh releasing some stress and feeling good yourself."

It works well with two people doing it together. "We even have some of our educators — which are people have gone through a 14-hour certification to be able to teach the program and then they re-certify every year — we have had many of them practice on their loved ones. One educator I'm thinking of in particular would call her mother every single morning at a certain time. And on Zoom, she and her mother and her sister, they would do Ageless Grave, bring health together. And that was a way of them connecting, and that was a way of them also supporting their mom in being able to maintain cognitive function. And they just did it for 10 to 15 minutes every day."

Ageless Grace has live classes hosted across the country, as well as Zoom classes, and videos. Denise says, "You practice this 10 to 15 minutes a day, which isn't very long, and you'll not only maintain cognitive function but can improve it and lift your spirit." Find locations at their website https://agelessgrace.com/.

Learn more about:
* Denise Medved: https://agelessgrace.com/denise-medved/
* Ageless Grace: https://agelessgrace.com/about/
* The Vitality Revolution podcast series: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/
* Humana: https://www.humana.com/
* Answers for Elders: https://answersforelders.com/welcome-to-answers-for-elders/

Answers for Elders is part of the SeniorResource Network: https://www.seniorresource.com/
Check out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks: https://alzheimersspeaks.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Denise Medved at Ageless Grace shares three of her 21 simple exercises to do each day to fortify your brain. Denise says, 

"Breaking out of your normal patterns of movement is important to firing new neurons and creating new neural pathways. Most people don't do new things. They do what they already know how to do, and they repeat it. Breaking out of that pattern is really important, to find new neurons, and create new neural pathways. Obviously, the best thing to do is actually physically do them with me, but I can describe a few that will help you be able to get started and see a difference in your own brain. You do these sitting down."

1. Gentle Geometry. Denise says, "It uses the shapes of a triangle, a circle and a line, either vertical or horizontal. We'll start making a circle, for example, with your right hand. And after you get that going, then start to draw a triangle in the air with your left foot, your opposite foot. Try to do them both at once. And then, depending on the group — many people cannot do this at all, and that's the point of it. Everybody laughs, everybody's laughing. But you want to keep trying — the minute you stop, that means your neurons stop firing. You're making the circle with one hand, so you don't want to stop and say, I can't do this. I give up, you wanna say 'I'm gonna keep trying so I can fire neurons,' and then I might add a third thing, and say, 'with the other hand make a horizontal line.' So you might be doing a circle with one hand, with the opposite foot, and then a horizontal line with the opposite hand. And you keep doing this to a song, something that you like. You put on some music, and when the song is about halfway through, you switch and you mirror it, so that you're switching sides of the brain that you're working. So now the other hand is making the circle, the other foot is making the triangle and the other hand is doing that."

2. Spelling B. "B stands for body, and it means you're spelling using your body parts. You could spell lots of different words. You could do it in cursive, you could do it in Japanese, you could do it in Spanish, whatever you like. But just to make it simple, to explain it, I might say: In lowercase cursive, write the word health in the air with your nose. So you would move your and write, go back and cross the T, and you might do that three or four times. And then you might write health with your right elbow two or three times, write it with your left elbow. And getting into some of the humor, write the word health in case cursive with your belly button. Look how much of your body it's used: your whole abdominal wall, rib cage, spine. And then you might write health in the air with your foot two or three times, and then with the other foot, or with your back against the wall. So you use all kinds of body parts. And again, we could have written several different words. It doesn't matter, as long as you're switching up and using words, and you're writing them with your body parts, because your brain right away is stimulating those functions of the brain. It stimulates all five of them simultaneously."

3. Pretend swimming. "Another quick one, that's very easy, is the idea of swimming. So you might lean back in your chair, and obviously to put your feet up in front of you in order to paddle, because you're seated. So right away, your brain is saying, well, how would I swim in a chair? Feet in front? And then you do as many different strokes as you can think of. A crawl, an Australian crawl, a breast stroke, a butterfly. That also stimulates the brain as well as moves the body."

Learn more about:
* Denise Medved: https://agelessgrace.com/denise-medved/
* Ageless Grace: https://agelessgrace.com/about/
* The Vitality Revolution podcast series: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/
* Humana: https://www.humana.com/
* Answers for Elders: https://answersforelders.com/welcome-to-answers-for-elders/

Answers for Elders is part of the SeniorResource Network: https://www.seniorresource.com/
Check out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks: https://alzheimersspeaks.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Denise Medved joins Suzanne to talk about the Ageless Grace brain fitness program, 21 simple exercises to do each day to maintain brain health. Ideally, these are preventative measures, but if the signs of cognitive decline are beginning to appear, the Ageless Grace program can improve symptoms. Because Ageless Grace is performed in a chair to engage the brain, almost anyone can participate.

Denise describes her inspiration for the program. "I saw my parents aging completely differently, even though they had the same food, they lived in the same house, they did everything together for 47 years. My mother, who was a brainiac, who studied, who took courses, who taught courses, who played the piano, who learned new pieces every week, who read books avidly, who did the New York Times and London Times crossword puzzle, but hated exercise or movement of any kind. She was actually diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And at that time when that happened, in the early 2000, they were saying, oh, if you do crossword puzzles and word games, you will be cognitively fit the rest of your life. My dad, who spoke English as a second language, was very physical. He was a gymnast, he was a weightlifter, he was a body builder. And I saw my dad staying sharp and fit and in control of himself and cognitively sharp all the time. And I said, well, that's interesting. You'd think my dad, who never studies, never reads, doesn't teach courses or take courses because it was difficult with him with English as a second language, is cognitively fit.

"I took a graduate program in gerontology, graduating from the Neuroscience Academy in Sydney, Australia. And at the same time there was research being done. They discovered that the primary function of the brain is to control movement of the body. So when we do some kind of movement, especially movement that's new or unique to us, or a little out-of-the-box, out of the ordinary, or when we're learning some new physical skill, those things stimulate the firing of neurons, which are brain cells.That's what we need to do to stimulate the cognitive function of our brain, so that we can change our brain and make it more resilient and stronger all the time, for a better quality of life."

Why aren't crosswords and jigsaw puzzles enough for neuroplasticity? Denise says, "I talked a little earlier about the five primary functions of the brain. Each of those different word games, or crosswords, number games, they affect a certain part of the brain, or a certain function of the brain, maybe two functions, but not all of them. I like to compare it to brushing your teeth. If you brushed your teeth every day, just in the front and noplace else, you'd be doing a great job with your front teeth, but everything else would decline and you would have tooth decay. So if you only work one or two functions of the brain all the time, they will be sharp, but the other functions will be failing." 

Learn more about:
* Denise Medved: https://agelessgrace.com/denise-medved/
* Ageless Grace: https://agelessgrace.com/about/
* The Vitality Revolution podcast series: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/
* Humana: https://www.humana.com/
* Answers for Elders: https://answersforelders.com/welcome-to-answers-for-elders/

Answers for Elders is part of the SeniorResource Network: https://www.seniorresource.com/
Check out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks: https://alzheimersspeaks.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Denise Medved, founder and CEO of Ageless Grace, joins Suzanne to talk about the brain fitness program taught in 50 states and more than 30 countries. Brain fitness is an aspect of intellectual wellness, one of the 8 foundational principles of wellness, a topic of this month's portion of The Vitality Revolution podcast series sponsored by Humana.

More than 3,600 educators have been certified to teach the program. It consists of 21 simple exercise tools, based on everyday movements that are natural and organic, and focus on the healthy longevity of the body and brain. Denise explains, "There are five primary functions of the brain. I'm not talking about regions or sections of the brain; that's anatomy. I'm talking about what does the brain do. All five functions must be activated on a daily basis, and strengthened because, if only one or two functions are strong, that doesn't mean the entire brain is healthy — all of those functions must be healthy.

"First, the brain does strategic planning, and it is based on physical movement, because the primary purpose of the brain is to control movement of the body. By strategic planning, I mean, how do you physically get from point A to B to C? How do you navigate across the room? How do you navigate to get in and out of your car?

"The next one is called memory and recall. As it relates to the purpose of the brain, it's controlling movement of the body, remembering a physical experience that you had. And a lot of people don't realize this, but any memory is actually remembering a physical experience, whether you realize it or not. Try to remember a fact learned in geography, and right away, you probably go to a picture of your classroom in your brain, or a picture of your teacher or where you sat when you were learning this thing. It is a physical memory experience that you are stimulating, and recall is slightly different than memory because recall could mean that you might be recalling what you know about something and the physical experience you had learning about that even though you don't do it yourself. So an example would be if I said, pretend you're playing the trombone. Well, you may never have even touched a trombone, but immediately you're gonna recall what you know, that it has a slide, that it has a mountain, and that is a form of memory. 

The third function of the brain is analytical thinking. And again, it has not anything to do with analyzing numbers particularly, or words, it has to do with understanding all the parts or components that make up an activity of your daily life. What are all the parts and steps that make up the idea of playing baseball? What are the parts and steps that make up the idea of I'm gonna get in my car and drive to the gym and I'm gonna have a workout? That's analytical thinking as it pertains to the brain.

The next one is called creativity and imagination. And we are all creative. It's one of the functions of the brain. And what that really means is being moving or acting in some way that's a little new to you, or different, or a little out of the box. It can be as simple as brushing your teeth — with the other hand instead of the one that you always use. That is a form of creativity. Dr Norman Doidge discovered that imagination and physical activity light up the same parts of the brain in an MRI. I can imagine that I'm playing a trombone, or I could really play a trombone, and my brain would light up the same way. It's fascinating.

And then the last function of the brain is kinesthetic learning. And that means we learn through our brain body first, and later on our brain kicks in, and advises our body on how to make it more efficient. That's how we learned, from the time we were children to maybe teenagers, or in their 20s, because we were learning how to do something for the first time."

Learn more about:
* Denise Medved: https://agelessgrace.com/denise-medved/
* Ageless Grace: https://agelessgrace.com/about/
* The Vitality Revolution podcast series: https://answersforelders.com/vitality-revolution/
* Humana: https://www.humana.com/
* Answers for Elders: https://answersforelders.com/welcome-to-answers-for-elders/

Answers for Elders is part of the SeniorResource Network: https://www.seniorresource.com/
Check out our affiliate podcast Alzheimer’s Speaks: https://alzheimersspeaks.com/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Totally Well Podcast with host Joyce Strong, Performance and Functional Nutrition Coach from www.totalwellcoach.com and her guest Maria Skinner from www.starfishdanceyoga.com talking about Ageless Grace, brain health, neuroplasticity and graceful aging.

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