Brain games target schizophrenia

My son started playing lumosity recently and says he's noticing improvements in his cognitive skills. And he's not the kind of person to think everything he tries helps him.

The game measures and trains five areas: memory, attention, problem solving, flexibility, and speed. I don't know what to think of it, if it works or not. I have a subscription and enjoy it. My numbers for all of these skills have always been high, in the upper 90's for my age group. I'm kind of a cynic, so I just figured they tell everyone that.

Well, when my son started, one of his skills was in the 5th percentile (I can't remember which skill it was). He's trained until he's now reached something like the 60th percentile for that skill. Critics say it just trains you to play the games better. I don't know. My son insists he's seeing improvements that carry over into his daily life.

Another interesting thing: when he started, he was very low on all the skills except attention which he was in the 90's on. We talked about how he's been hypervigilant for years, scanning for other people's reactions to him and what he's doing. It's like he's been working that attention muscle constantly.

So, because my son is impressed - and he's hard to impress - I did a google search and found that there are experiments being conducted in this area. Here's an article: Brain games target schizophrenia - HT Health.

This is so funny I just signed up for two years of luminosity like literally 2 days ago, I actually used that and brain age of the nintendo ds early during my recovery and I do think it helped snap my brain back into working order. I just wanted a refresher because my mind is cloudy again a bit after getting of the meds I'm thinking some of the old circuits are active and need exercising.

There is also another system called posit which is geared toward people with sz and they use audio games too so the idea is training your auditory input areas might help prevent the mental confusion that leads to hallucinations----I'm not sure if that version is available publicly yet but they do have games on their site. Still luminosity is cheap and fun and uses some things like the N-back which have been proven to work. The type of cognition most damaged by sz is working memory and they have games that enhance that type of memory available.

The one caveat I will say is how the training is geared you will see an increase no matter what. They start a lot of the games at incredibly low levels so one day 1 I was pulling 17% across the board except problem solving which was 66%---today literally 2 days later its 50% and up across the board. Why---two things, you learn the rules to the games but you also start on a higher level with more points available. So unless you actually play each game multiple times the first day you're going to see an increase as you train so its slightly misleading. On the flip side---I have hardly made any typos as I typed this as opposed to earlier this week where it was every other word so maybe it just worked fast?

Still I think its a great program and at $5 a month(for the 2 year plan) its like skipping starbucks every now and then you know.

Anyway cognitive remediation is a great thing no matter how you choose to do it...

Costello, I don't have luminosity. I go to a site called Cambridge Brain Science or something like that. Anyway, it's the same thing but a free site (not as fancy, lol.) But you make a free account and track your progress. I also have some lite apps on my phone

These cognitive skills are all the ones I struggle with. I play the games to try to help my skills. The irony is is I forget to play them. :P Puzzles are good for the brain.

When my cognition fell off I see a big decline in my ability to play my match 3 games, (like Jewel Quest or Triple Town,) which I always played to help my anxiety. I still play them, but my planning skills are really bad. It goes hand in hand with trying to put my writing together, trying to cook a meal, trying to organize...

Thanks. I'll have a look at Cambridge Brain Science. I saw that Posit was developing software for sz. I was pretty excited by that. I own one of their software programs which is designed to sharpen up auditory processing, but it's mainly aimed at older people. I don't think my son has those kinds of issues. Actually, though, since it allows two people to use it, I could have him try it. I just don't want to annoy him by pushing something useless on him.

My general thought is toss it his way and see if he likes it ie don't push say look this is kind of like luminosity thought you might enjoy it---the idea behind it is that the areas that generate hallucinations are the same as the ones involved in auditory processing so tuning them up a bit might help the hallucinations and stuff---I know they've put out research papers on it but they aren't open access and they are in such obscure journals I can't even access them so I'm not sure what to make of them.

Also I'm reading this great book on cognitive enhancement in just a normal guy right now its called Smarter: The new science of building brain power---I've only gotten through the part of where he picks the best cognitive enhancers and he's just beginning training now---however I'm guessing that he will see success or its unlikely the book would have ever been published at all.
So amazingly nicotine is a great enhancer and if you don't want the bad effects and addiction of smoking you can apparently just use a nicotine patch. He's also doing music, exercise, luminosity, N-back and transcranial direct-current stimulation. He got an fMRI done and an IQ test before starting and they will be repeated at the end. So he's going to work out 3 months and then tell us what happens at the end of the book with the idea being if this kind of intense regime can't change the brain then nothing can but at the same time all of the scientific studies are based on people with cognitive problems and they just respond better. Anyway its an interesting book I was thinking of putting it up on here after I'm done reading.

I believe, in general, play is good for humans. I think our society kind of makes us feel like playing games is for kids. But, I think we learn and keep our minds healthy through play. I think that's why video games are so popular even with adults. Playing pretend, solving puzzles, acheiving small goals, etc are all healthy for our brains.

So, let your son try it if he wants. Maybe it would be a good game for his friend who has trouble on the phone, since it's auditory processing.

When I was recovering I was playing with a high bounce ball a lot---it was really fun but I felt guilty about it and told me T and she said she actually had a high bounce ball in her coat pocket and that it was totally normal...she really was the best T.

Oh another game that I used in my recovery is sort of a logic based card game called set---its inexpensive and really fun for multiple players although you can practice on your own which is mostly what I did.

Oh yeah one more thing was mindfulness meditation---I got a DVD for that but I haven't broken it out yet---but the book guy is doing that and I know Willow wanted to learn that too

Trying to get Bean to try this out. At this point and time, she cant handle it. Its not fun to her. "Too Much" she says. To what? Stressful I think. I dont know. I will try again in 6 months. She is loosing a lot of mental ability across the board right now....

Maybe don't use one specifically for this but let her find something on her own. Tetris, match 3 games, Solitare, Free Cell, there are a lot of games taht build cognition kind of secretly.

Plus, I find for me it's better to be in the right state of mind. I keep Triple Town on my phone and sometimes go months without playing, then I get back to it.

This may sound bad but one of the things I did was a little regression...what games did she like as a kid? I ended up getting word searches a my little pony and a high bounce ball. I know it seems weird to basically be playing with toys but they encourage creativity, quick reflexes and basic thought processes----so why not start with something easy? I was also way into like Pixar/Disney movies---maybe its not advanced calculus but these things all activate your neural pathways and a netflix subscription is pretty cheap. I'm not sure exactly what all these things did but they seemed to help the same way they help you learn when you are a kid even if they aren't educational per se. Maybe you even have something up in storage you could pull out?

She is doing that rubber band craft which is a big deal for her....thats about it. Puzzles she loved to do she cant anymore,games etc. All creativity and imagine gone. We dont do video games but we have an old hand held game boy i will try....thanks for the advice.!

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As a kid, I was a Tetris master on my game boy. I can still hear that music in my head.

I like the toy idea. The dollar store has lots of craft things for cheap. Maybe just have stuff around for her to do when she feels up to it. With my racing thoughts it really bugs me when my creativity goes out the window. My creativity is very important to me.

Im an artist and she used to create artwork of all sorts with me. I have a whole room full of a million activities. She cant do any of it for more than 5 minutes now. She says its too much. Maybe letting her pick something at the store....but I tried that. Got home and she never touched it. I can try again though. Thank you.

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I can tell you that it will come back. Mine comes and goes. My biggest example is my writing. I used to write non stop for like 8 hours a day 7 days a week. That's gone now. I write in spurts. When I can't write it is too much for me. It makes me sad. I really want to write. But, that's just one aspect.

I used to do a web comic and updated it every Monday and Wednesday. I haven't been able to update it in years. I draw for a while, then I can't. I crochet like a mad woman, then I can't. It all comes and goes. But, I have learned if it goes, it will come back. I never give up hope that it's still in there, and I'll get it back.

How about finger painting...I know it's not sophisticated but the first painting I did after getting sick was a finger painting for the most part...tactile stimulation was a big thing for me during my recovery...what was amazing it that painting was an entirely different color palette than I would ever use...it was a flower a moss rose in pink with orange stamens and the background was a swirl of blue and black along with red. It had this dark surreal quality that I've never been able to capture again. I did use a brush to finish it though but the bulk of it was just non-toxic acrylic/ craft paint and fingers swirling...

I agree with this...I was a total wreck while psychotic but once I got stabilized I started regaining things...the problem is the meds were actually blocking new things too so it wasn't until I got to a very low dose 2.5mg of abilify that I even felt like myself again...I started liking the old things that I liked before but to some extent I also retained the new interests I found during recovery...now it's like having both experiences.

Oh another thing I liked were picture books so limited words I found a few Japanese stories about cranes and stuff on amazon but also just photos are beautiful and all that takes is flickr. I imagine all this stuff will be highly individualized but these are just some ideas and it helps to use them as a reward for doing other crappy things that need to be done like work/school whatever at least it helps for me because I even when well use for example video games as an incentive to do things I don't want to do.

Thank ladies, you have given me some hope and I am going to try some of your suggestions. Its nice to hear that some of her creativity may come back. She is so disorganized. I will try these things.

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Amazon.com : ThinkFun Izzi : Brain Teaser Puzzles : Toys & Games

One more thing. This is a fantastic abstract puzzle...you just match black and white corners and all the pieces are square and yet I've never been able to solve it completely but you can do smaller squares quite easily. So it's sort of self leveling...and there are more challenges if you ever complete it.