Navon Brain Training News

Game Forward magazine reviews CogniFit Personal Coach

duncan@navon.com.au — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 13:28:18 GMT

The following comments are extracts from Game Forward's review of CogniFit Personal Coach. To read the full article on their website please follow the link at the bottom of the page.

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Brain training games have gained popularity in the past few years, but few actually improve a user’s cognitive abilities and fewer still offer a personalized and structured program that adapts to a user as they progress.

CogniFit Personal Coach is different. The software identifies your strengths and weaknesses in 14 cognitive abilities like Visual Perception and Time Estimation, then builds an intensive 24-session program designed to improve areas you are weak in, while maintaining your ...

RTEC and Navon join forces to supply New Zealand with the latest driving-related cognitive assessment and training technology

Navon Press Release — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:18:12 GMT

The Road and Traffic Education Centre (RTEC) in Auckland has joined forces with Navon Brain Fitness Solutions to bring to New Zealand the latest version of Israeli cognitive assessment and training technology that is specifically designed to predict collision risk and promote safer driving.

RTEC supply three different versions of the programs to cater for the needs of new, fleet and senior drivers. The Managing Director Tony Williams said “We’re excited by this technology for several reasons. The programs assess each driver’s cognitive and perceptual strengths and weakness so we can identify and address potentially lethal deficiencies before they get behind the wheel. This is of great comfort not only ...

Tips to watch Academy Award movies and engage your brain

duncan@navon.com.au — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:14:14 GMT

With this weekend’s upcoming Academy Awards, many of us may be thinking about our favorite movies and spending time in front of the television catching up on movies from the past year. What does that mean for your brain? Unfortunately, television isn’t the best thing for our brains; it’s the kind of passive activity that doesn’t help to stimulate new pathways and connections so important for cognitive health.

To advance our brain fitness, we must constantly seek out new activities that challenge our cognitive functioning. As a daily activity, television won’t do this. However, if you’d like to keep your brain engaged while watching some of this year’s ...

Navon to present sophisticated brain training technology at Retirement Communities World conference

duncan@navon.com.au — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:28:04 GMT

Navon will introduce the latest range of CogniFit online brain training technology at RCW 2010. The flagship program CogniFit Personal Coach has recently been awarded the ICAA Equipment Innovator

CogniFit Ltd was founded in 1999 by cognitive psychologist Shlomo Breznitz, PhD, CogniFit offers personalized brain fitness software programs to assess, train and improve the cognitive and psychomotor skills needed for daily life. CogniFit Personal Coach, the company’s latest offering, is an online program intended “to slow down and counteract” aging-related cognitive decline.

This program was designed to meet the needs of older adults in several ways, according to CogniFit ...

ICAA selects CogniFit Personal Coach as this year’s equipment innovator

duncan@navon.com.au — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:22:04 GMT

“In the active-aging industry, we understand the profound impact that the right opportunities, environments and attitudes can have on the health and well-being of older adults,” says ICAA’s founder and CEO, Colin Milner. “As a result, our industry continues to lead the way in developing programs and products that support healthier, more vital aging. This year’s ICAA award recipients exemplify this drive for innovative solutions,” Milner states. “These offerings have challenged, encouraged and engaged older adults in different dimensions of wellness, enriching their lives and advancing a more positive view of aging. On behalf of ICAA, I congratulate the organizations and individuals who created these offerings and thank everyone who ...

Distracted driving, it’s all in the head

Wendy Leavitt — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 11:17:27 GMT

Of all the challenges facing truck drivers today, one of the toughest to identify and remedy is distracted driving.

Driving, it turns out, is an especially difficult task for humans, accustomed for millennia to dealing with things, at worst, at the speed of a fast run. Three experts on the subject of distracted driving shared their perspectives in a free, live webcast this week, presented by Truckload Carriers Assn. and Fleet Owner and sponsored by Xata. Guest speakers included David Money, technical director transportation services for the Loss Control Advisory Services Group of Liberty Mutual Insurance; Prof. Shlomo Breznitz, ...

Watching football good for brain fitness

duncan@navon.com.au — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 19:46:25 GMT

Watching football conjures images of rabid sports fans, a day of sitting in front of the television and eating unhealthy snacks, a fun time with family and friends- but it’s generally not considered a day that has any redeeming qualities for our brain fitness.

However, a 2008 study from the University of Chicago shows that there is some evidence that being a sports fan actually can improve brain function. The research showed for the first time that a region of the brain usually associated with planning and controlling actions is activated when players and fans listen to conversations about their ...

Bond students boosting their brains

duncan@navon.com.au — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Navon and BUSA (Bond University Student Association) have combined to offer all staff, students and alumni access to cutting edge cognitive training technology. Not only will CogniFit Personal Coach boost their ability to focus, absorb and retain information, it also enhances their mental and brain health as well.

Bond University has always been keen to promote more effective ways of learning, as well as the entrepreneurial spirit. So it is no surprise then that BUSA is actively promoting an online brain training program that is supplied by a company co-founded by a Bond alumni member. Available through Navon brain fitness ...

CogniFit puts ball in motion, aiming to help NFL alumni improve cognition

duncan@navon.com.au — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:24:04 GMT

CogniFit, Inc., a leading maker of Brain Fitness Software is supporting the NFLA to raise awareness for the benefits of cognitive training. Information about CogniFit will appear in the organization’s 2009 NFL Alumni Association Yearbook. The increasing emphasis on full-body fitness, including sharp cognition for athletes, reinforces a strong connection between brain fitness and sports – particularly football.

CogniFit offers brain fitness programs targeted at improving cognitive functions crucial to the daily lives of sports players and adults in general, through scientifically validated, personalized brain training software.

“Although the science behind brain fitness is conclusive, too many people still don’t realize that targeted mental effort can make a difference in their mental ...

US Navy finds “gamers” perceptual and cognitive abilities give them an advantage

Duncan Ferguson, — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:13:56 GMT

The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has found that video games “increase perceptual abilities, short term memory and helps people focus longer”. Their research also found that a gamer’s improved abilities can last more than two years.

Ray Perez, a program officer in the ONR's warfighter performance department says the ONR is seeking to develop training technologies and methods to improve performance on the battlefield and spoke about the findings in a Pentagon Web Radio Webcast. Perez said that “gamers perform "10 to 20 % higher, in terms of perceptual and cognitive ability, than normal people that are non-game players."

Of course we find this of interest since ...

Cognitive training with CogniFit Personal Coach boosts reading skills in dyslexic students

Duncan Ferguson, — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:24:31 GMT

When dyslexic college students trained with CogniFit Personal Coach, their brain activity, working memory and reading performance were shown to increase significantly, and results lasted up to six months after training. The case study was conducted by Tzipi Horowitz-Kras and Zvia Breznitz at the Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the study of Learning Disabilities, Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel.

Abstract

Background:
Based on the relationship between working memory and error detection, we investigated the capacity of adult dyslexic readers' working memory to change as a result of training, and the impact of training on the error detection ...

How Parkinson’s disease affects learning and attention

Duncan Ferguson, — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 09:29:15 GMT

It may not be immediately apparent to the layman as to why cognitive (brain) training programs are used by Parkinson’s disease patients. A new brain-based novel computational model developed by scientists at Rutgers University is helping us understand how Parkinson's disease and dopamine medications—used to treat motor symptoms caused by the disease— can affect learning and attention. Outside the scope of this study, what is not commonly known is that cognitive training can also help regulate the levels of dopamine in the system.

In a forthcoming article in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience a new computational model has shown how ...

CogniFit says “Hola” to Spanish-speakers seeking brain fitness

CogniFit Press Release — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 12:48:38 GMT

CogniFit™, Inc., a leading maker of Brain Fitness Software, launched CogniFit Personal Coach and a new website for Spanish-speaking users at the SharpBrains Summit. The new software and website, at http://www.cognifit.com/es, will allow CogniFit to provide the large Latino community in the United States with comprehensive and up-to-date information about brain fitness, as well as brain training software in Spanish targeted at improving cognitive functions crucial to their everyday lives.

“Brain fitness and neuroplasticity are hot topics that will impact healthcare, insurance and longevity for all Americans, no matter their native tongue,” said Alvaro Fernandez of market researcher SharpBrains. “It is heartening to see innovative companies pay attention to ...

Chemotherapy’s toxicity to the brain revealed

Duncan Ferguson, — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:12:38 GMT

Science Daily has recently reported that a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Centre (URMC) have developed an animal model which demonstrates how four commonly used chemotherapy drugs disrupt the birth of new brain cells.

The researchers were testing two different hypotheses. One,that cognitive problems experienced by many chemotherapy & patients may be due to the treatment destroying the ability of brain cells to regenerate from the hippocampus (for a more detailed explanation please feel welcome to download the booklet Cognitive Vitality, available on this website), and two, that chemo-drugs known to cross the blood-brain barrier ...

CogniFit brain training technology implemented to create a more welcoming community for aging parents

duncan@navon.com.au — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 09:05:38 GMT

CogniFit™, Inc., a leading maker of Brain Fitness Software has announced a partnership with the Mental Health Association of Rockland County, which aims to maintain mental well-being through community outreach (MHARockland.org). As National Family Caregivers Month comes to a close, CogniFit and the Mental Health Association of Rockland County will lead an initiative to help home and professional caregivers better understand the aging brain and subtleties of cognitive decline. This partnership is an extension of a $64,000 Community Empowerment Grant that was recently awarded to the Mental Health Association of Rockland County by the New York State Office for the ...