Hey, Jan, they had examples of a couple Veterans with brain injuries and retraining, etc.

But no; no one has to lose skills. They had an elderly New York University professor who had a stroke, couldn't talk, nothing. His son worked with him and he had to learn to crawl again, etc. and was almost 100% "fixed" from a stroke in a part of the brain that they had thought doesn't fix at all! Anyway, he went back to teaching his classes. When he died, his sons wanted an autopsy and the guy who did that showed his neurologist son slides of his brain and the stroke was there to be seen, in the part of the brain that they thought cannot recover and his brain had totally rewired itself! It had totally gone around the "bad" area.

The message was that if you work hard enough (and keep working), the brain can keep up with the body and doesn't have to age any worse than any other part. It can grow and create new connections; has a literal use-it-or-lose-it philosophy, just like the rest of your body's muscles and systems.