The curriculum can help slow the onset of dementia.
Alexandria, Va. (NS) – There are an estimated 10 million cases of mild cognitive impairment amongst the elderly population in the United States.
Rob Liebreich, CEO and President of Goodwin House, said many people who have mild cognitive impairment develop Alzheimer’s.
“It is not a foregone conclusion, but there’s a lot of potentiality. That means if you’ve had mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s may be coming. Alzheimer’s, as you and I know, doesn’t have any cure for it. There’s a lot of challenges emotionally and financially that come with that disease,” said Liebreich.
His organization has developed a curriculum that seniors can find for free at 49 senior centers across Maryland as well as online at strongermemory.com to help slow and even stop the onset of symptoms.
Using the Stronger Memory curriculum, a senior reads out loud and solves basic math problems for 20 to 30 minutes per day.
“Any reading material really in any language. In fact, we’ve translated Stronger Memory into Spanish already and more languages to come in the future, but really it’s any material that people can read out loud. Twenty to thirty minutes might be difficult to include in your day, but if you’re reading the newspaper, just read it out loud,” Liebreich explained.
He added that the process does take time and users typically see positive results in their memory after a month.