linky You don't need to enter your email address.

I've been questioning my ability to remember things and I ran across this test when doing a little research. I'm not exactly sure what the results mean but I thought I would have a great comparison with you guys here on the bbs.

My Grandmother pasted away from Alzheimer's Disease and I think I am beginning to see some signs of Alzheimer's in my dad. Is this something I should be worried about at my age, 25? Are there things I can do now to help prevent Alzheimer's or memory loss?

From that same site...

Quote:
Science suggests that exercise may play a role in prevention of Alzheimer's by supporting circulation and blood flow to the brain. It also offers many benefits for people with Alzheimer's disease, including improved strength, endurance, and cardiovascular fitness. Exercise helps people with Alzheimer's disease preserve motor skills and improve balance, which in turn can help prevent serious injury from falls. Exercise also can increase energy, promote a normal day and night routine, and help to improve mood. Further, exercise increases circulation and can help improve mental clarity. Repetitive exercises--including walking, indoor bicycling, and activities such as folding laundry--may decrease anxiety in people with Alzheimer's disease because they don't have to make decisions about the activity or remember what to do next.

45, then 55, then 64. I feel like I got better due to practice -- more muscle memory than anything else.

The scary thing is that I read recently (can't find the link now) that the progress of alzheimers corresponds directly to your level of education. The more education, the faster A progresses. No, it has nothing to do with the likelihood of getting it, but once you have it, it progresses much faster if you are highly educated. Guess the theory is that education gives you more neural connections, and A somehow progresses using those connections.

87 was my high score. I started in the high 50's or low 60's (can't remember ironically), and by my 4th or 5th time I hit that score.

No, it's the other way round. The article was in New Scientist: the findings implied that education increased the connectivity of the brain so that damage was masked for longer due to the brain finding alternate pathways in the "extra" connectivity. However, when the connectivity/reserve routing capacity was exhausted, deterioration was rapid.

It is being shown with regularity now that exercise (both physical and mental) to increase (and maintain) circulation in the brain can do a lot to reduce both the likelihood and effect of deterioration.

What you should be more concerned about is the fact that one potential trigger factor of an Alzheimer-like condition (with similar scelrotic plate damage) is raised levels of aluminium in the bloodstream over prolonged periods of time.

Hello, deodourant

And aluminum cookware, which you have less control over, unless you decide to never eat out.

42.52, 65.96, 70.99, 86.62, 72.52. Seems to be much more about quick reaction and thinking than memory per se.

Warning for the Brits: for the purposes of this test, a "football" is a brown prolate spheroid (actually a vesica piscis rotated about an axis touching both points), and a black-and-white tesselated sphere is a "soccer ball".

Hmm. I just now tried randomly pushing buttons immediately upon seeing the images appear. I got 42% correct and scored 159.3. I don't know if that indicates that the test requires that you try, or if it indicates that it's a crock of shit.

No, it just means that each question only has two choices, so you'd expect to get in the neighborhood of 50 percent. Which you did.

Yeah, but the fact that I got, by far, the highest score here by clicking randomly is the questionable thing, not the fact that I got ~50% right. 50% is pretty lousy and would be a pretty good indicator of something wrong with your briain, IMO, but, according to them, my brain is excellent because I can press a button more quickly.

They have apparently fixed it. I did just that and got a score of 0. Average speed was 117 ms.