What can we do to stay cognitively healthy? With so many wearables, gadgets, and digital health solutions, can we benefit from new scientific findings? This pretty unsophisticated pitch was my initial idea behind starting this article. So let’s see where we stand in this regard!

This analysis is specifically about cognitive health, and we will not include mental health or emotional health.

To put it very simply, cognitive health is how well you think, learn, and remember. This ability of our brains makes us capable of decision-making and maintaining focus. It encompasses the overall functioning and health of the mind, crucial for navigating everyday life and responding to its challenges.

The most often occurring diseases/conditions damaging it are Alzheimer's disease, dementia, stroke, Parkinson's disease, depression, and multiple sclerosis. And of course, traumatic brain Injuries from the physical side.

Environmental factors can damage, reading and games can maintain cognitive health

According to the American National Institute of Aging, the most important environmental (as opposed to genetic) factors that can damage our cognitive health are:

• Some physical and mental health problems, such as high blood pressure or depression
• Brain injuries, such as those due to falls or accidents
• Some medicines, or improper use of medicines
• Lack of physical activity
• Poor diet
• Smoking
• Drinking too much alcohol
• Sleep problems
• Social isolation and loneliness

We have already written about how we can maintain our brain health. Good practices include daily brain exercises (the most efficient of which is learning a foreign language, but you can see other examples as well, like playing bridge, go, or sudoku). Also, reading every day is proven to be efficient.

Games are great tools to kill two birds with one stone. Gameplay focuses and controls our attention, taps into our innate strengths, thrills us utterly, and compels us to greater resilience in the attainment of more powerful and useful skills. That’s why gamified apps (like Lumosity, Elevate, or CogniFit) are widely used for improving and maintaining cognitive abilities.

Existing digital health technologies for cognitive health

Cognitive disorders are not just extremely scary from a personal point of view, these are also major global health concerns. According to this study, digital healthcare technologies offer ways to manage and slow down the progression of conditions like dementia and mild cognitive impairment. However, choosing the right technology is difficult because there's no comprehensive review that covers the various types of digital technology for cognitive impairment, including their effects and limitations.

The goal of the study was to identify different types of digital health technologies used for dementia and mild cognitive impairment and evaluate how the results are measured and aligned with their intended purposes.

A total of 135 articles were selected. For people with mild cognitive impairment, technologies focused on predicting and diagnosing dementia were explored. For those with dementia, technologies aimed at preventing health deterioration and inducing significant improvement were considered. Studies for caregivers focused on monitoring and daily living assistive technologies to reduce the burden of care. However, challenges like data collection, storage, safety, and the digital divide still exist, varying in intensity depending on the type of technology.

The wonderful world of brain-computer interfaces

These devices actually have a marginal effect on cognitive health, but still, we can’t leave them out, as they can help individuals with severe cognitive or motor impairments to communicate and control their environment - so they will turn the world over for people with these conditions.

Some of these are already in more advanced phases and have proven their capabilities, like Synchron’s implant. Their interface was already tried with four patients a few years ago and now they are moving on with completing the patient enrollment for this feasibility study. The trial has enrolled six patients with severe quadriparesis and has three active clinical trial sites in the US. Other ventures seem to be a bit more worrisome.

Early diagnostics may improve our odds

We see a growing amount of evidence that early detection of various conditions (like Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease) can improve patients’ conditions. New technologies and methods, like dedicated AI algorithms, are great allies in that.

Although these are not strictly our subject, as these look for biomarkers, we have seen several promising announcements in the past years, like smartwatches potentially detecting early Parkinson’s or the many studies and reports about what eye scans can do to predict such conditions, often many years before traditional diagnostics. And thus, we can’t just simply leave them out without a word.