How to enhance Cognitive Development
Strategies to Improve Cognitive Function | Memorial Sloan Kettering
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there are also a fair number of people
beginning to do cognitive rehabilitation
and this kind of gets back to your
question of well what can you do and so
this is one example of a cognitive
rehabilitation technique that has some
has some evidence that is successful so
it's called memory and attention
training was developed by a colleague of
mine and when I was up at Dartmouth for
quite a few years and basically it has
several components so one of which is
sort of an educational component so just
to talk about cognitive airs and
different types of attention and memory
and we have a tendency to kind of when
we have a problem we have a tendency to
think that well everything was perfect
before but now I have a problem well in
fact cognitive errors are very common
you know I make cognitive errors every
day I forget things I misspeak I can't
find words and you all did too before
you ever had a cancer diagnosis so part
of it's important to keep in mind that
the goal of a treatment is to kind of
get us back to as close to you know sort
of the same level of cognitive errors
that everybody else makes not perfect
memory not perfect concentration and
that sort of thing
there are compensatory strategies that
that people use I mean we're we're sort
of in an electronic age and so people
are taking advantages of electronics for
you know making lists calendars you know
using Palm Pilots blackberries I keep I
can't even keep up with all the new like
droids any son was trying to tell me how
to do I thought it was like you know a
Star Wars Star Wars thing but now I
guess it's a new electronic gadget so
you know part of it is getting more
organized using you know whatever it is
whether it's lists I mean for some
people it's stickies on the refrigerator
whatever works for you I mean if you're
I'm personally I'm just kind of getting
used to using a cell phone so I'm not a
real electronics geek so I pens pencil
and paper is good for me but you know
again depends on what whatever helps you
to stay organized is useful you know
scheduling and time management if if you
have trouble multitasking if you have
trouble doing more than one thing at a
time try to schedule your time as much
as you can within the constraints to do
this and then complete that task move on
to the next thing you know and move on
to the next thing now that's not
depending on your work and your life
demands that's more or less feasible but
the concept of trying to schedule things
so that you don't have multiple
deadlines on the same day and that sort
of thing is often very helpful this self
instructional training is something that
my colleague is used and it's it really
kind of goes back to the way in which we
learn but as we were kids you know if
you watch kids they often talk out loud
in them and they're trying to do
something they say and now I do this and
then I do this and that's how we learned
how to do things again that process
becomes totally automatic when we're
adults for most adults but sometimes so
one of the ways to try to
keep yourself on track and not get
distracted is to set down what are the
steps I need to do and to kind of talk
your way through it you don't have to be
talking out loud you can be talking
internally but it's really a way of
keeping ourselves on track and keeping
ourselves organized again sleep hygiene
fatigue management you could put
exercise underneath there because you
know exercise is probably one of the
best ways of improving sleep and and
reducing stress but there is some
evidence and there haven't been any
studies in in on cognitive functioning
and cancer patients but in older adults
there have been studies showing that
exercise can have a positive effects on
cognition so there needs to be studies
done looking at the effect of exercise
on cognitive functioning in cancer
survivors and and as there are people I
know that are beginning to move in that
area but there aren't any results yet
but it makes sense that that would be
something that would be beneficial and I
personally recommend that to everyone to
just try to up your exercise level to
the to the extent that you can and even
and you don't have to be going to a gym
and lifting weights and using power
machines you can use just walking you
know swimming biking whatever you know
fits into your schedule into you and to
your preferences it's just it can be it
can be useful in just 30 minutes a day I
mean if you can and you know here in New
York if it's rather you know taking a
walking to the next train station and
you know trying to build it into the
routine as much as possible so that it's
something that you can you know sort of
have as part of just a day-to-day
activity for some people or you know
again stress and anxiety are our issues
things like relaxation exercises
meditation
in yoga you know it depends again on on
your preferences I think there are many
roads to relaxation
you know Taichi
you know almost any any of these
approaches can be beneficial but to the
extent that we can keep ourselves
relaxed it can can really help with the
cognitive functioning and then there's
sort of this problem-solving component
which is to say when when when you go
through this therapy it really is if you
say I want to just you know have better
cognitive functioning that's a little
bit too broad okay it's sort of what is
your what is it that you're not trying
to define what is it that you can't do
what are your goals and how can we just
figure out strategies to help you meet
that goal you know in trying to really
break it down into very concrete steps
and mana and potentially solvable
problems so that you can you know sort
of chip away at it and find out you know
how maybe you maybe there are
workarounds maybe there are ways you can
improve maybe there are you know maybe
there's ways that capitalise on on
neuroplasticity
so it's all it's all about what are your
life demands what is it that you can't
do now that you want to do and how can
try to come up with strategies to help
make that happen so there are people
doing research on this and there's some
interesting initial results in terms of
both neuropsychological testing and
quality of life people are beginning to
take the next step and actually use the
fMRI the functional MRI to see though if
you go through this kind of training do
you actually see changes in your
activation in the brain it kind of gets
back to that issue of can we somehow
harness that
plasticity of the brain and try to make
it more efficient and more useful to you
know rather than just letting the brain
kind of reorganize on its own
