The BHI is designed to detect both improvements and declines in brain health. It measures three primary areas: clarity, emotional balance, and connectedness to people and purpose.

"The BrainHealth Index brings together about 20 metrics, including validated gold-standard measures like the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, as well as tasks designed at the Center for BrainHealth to focus on more complex thinking skills," said Lori Cook MS'02, PhD'09, CBH director of clinical research and corresponding author of the Scientific Reports study. "This battery of assessments produces insights into individual brain health and change over time. Progress is measured by comparing results with participants' own earlier scores."

They couldn't find a single metric that showed what they wanted. So they crumpled all the metrics into a big meaningless ball, and said sometimes in some aspects things get better.

And it seems like a reasonable expectation is that the elderly who saw improvement, just saw a short term bump from becoming more mentally active. It's a good bump and people should stay mentally active.

But acting like a small bump overcomes the natural effects of aging is fucking ridiculous.

Like if a 600lb person loses 50lbs. It's an improvement, but it doesn't mean they're healthy. Just less unhealthy.

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago (2 children)

So the article claims that people can improve, and improvement is necessarily based on surpassing prior, personal ability, and you’re mad?

I didn’t see anywhere that they said that a 90 year old can get the brain of a 20 year old, only that it can still be improved at that age and we don’t need to resign ourselves to a degraded mind when we’re old. If we buy a new car it’ll never be as clean as it was off the lot, but that doesn’t mean it can’t at least be repaired and kept roadworthy later into it’s life.

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

I think this is a reasonable statement to make, but I also think this study isn't great, in that it is mostly based on self reported data

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world -1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

, only that it can still be improved at that age and we don’t need to resign ourselves to a degraded mind

A reduced degrading is still a degrading.

[–] Soup@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

If they beat their scores from before that’s still an improvement. That would imply that this isn’t just slowing the degradation but it’s actually reversing it slightly. Only slowing would imply that their scores would be worse, but less worse than expected.

You have very strong opinions about this for someone with such a fundamentally low level of reading comprehension.

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago

I understand the suspicion but you might want to keep some daylight between “qualitative data” and “bullshit.”

I completely understand that quant data is always more certain to work with, but to totally discount qual data leaves you utterly blind in a lot of fields where quant measurements are impossible to standardize.

[–] Lemming6969@lemmy.world -2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'd guess every 20 years after 20 years old, processing power drops by 50%. By 80 you're almost 90% gone, fucking braindead in comparison to 20.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Why would you guess?

And why would your guess be so... Well, so bad?

[–] I_Fart_Glitter@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Because they’re 120 years old.

[–] DarkCloud@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago

Neurogenesis is life long, especially if you make a habit of it.

[–] cmbabul@slrpnk.net 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Bitch I’ve been trying to sabotage this mother fucker for years, never brought me anything but misery

[–] Baggie@lemmy.zip 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

You tried the little switch at the back that goes between evil and good?

[–] D_C@sh.itjust.works -1 points 4 days ago

That's what that is?
I thought it was a 'Straight or Gay' switch!! Brb, I'm off to do some evil stuff. Muhahahaha!!

...

Ow, you lied. And my arse is really sore!

(J/k. I'll use any excuse to do butt stuff, or get railed.)

[–] Miller@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Nobody that lives in the world and meets people thinks that mental sharpness must decline as you get older, only that it is common.

[–] sexy_peach@feddit.org 0 points 4 days ago

Usually these studies say exactly that though

[–] WhoIzDisIz@lemmy.today 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (3 children)

I thought it was reported a whole back that the benefits of those "brain training" apps were vastly over-hyped. Gonna have to go back & look for those reports.

[–] javasux@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I believe the finding was that learning new skills was the beneficial part, and it didn't help to keep doing them once you were proficient

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Learning is good for the brain at any age. Picking up a new skill, traveling to a foreign land, starting a new job with new people…

Fiddling with an app on your phone…. Not so much.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

They were right.

What OP posted is click bait meta analysis

[–] Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

"patent pending"

Includes "Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index and the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire"

The article doesn't go into the details but it doesn't look good. Including how happy you feel into a final metric of how well you can process data doesn't seem rigorous.

"This 80 year old is happy and doesn't know his own name so we will rank him higher than this woman who is still practicing law and playing chess at grandmaster level but is depressed and not sleeping well. "

[–] WellTheresYourFix@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 days ago

Wonder if my spatial intelligence will improve. Couldn't get much worse!

[–] eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 4 days ago

Maintaining physical exercise seems to be correlated with mental sharpness

[–] Klear@piefed.world 4 points 4 days ago

But that was 30 years ago!

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I think what they mean is you can relearn things you forgot and learn new things at the age of 90, not that your brain is better than ever.

[–] ripcord@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Did you read the article? That's not what I interpreted at all.

[–] Doomsider@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Yeah, I guess you need to have experience working with elders to really understand what they are saying and I am definitely reading between the lines as I have spent over a decade in elder care.

"This study challenges the prevailing narrative of inevitable cognitive decline, suggesting instead that brain health can be proactively cultivated at any age."

The human mind can be improved at any age. Therefore you can still relearn previous concepts and learn new things at any time. I don't think serious cognitive decline is a given, but some cognitive decline is natural when the mind isn't being exercised about a topic. Think learning a foreign language on high school but not remembering much because you didn't keep practicing.

[–] mcqtom@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Breaking news, old people aren't dead yet.

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

But it also shrinks.

[–] yeahiknow3@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

On average. Since the average person is basically illiterate.

[–] anakin78z@lemmy.world -1 points 4 days ago

It just chooses not to.

[–] kbal@fedia.io -1 points 4 days ago

They did a study on my brain? I didn't even know about it.