I was introduced to Sparkd, a gym to improve cognitive health through the combination physical and cognitive exercises. Sparkd was created with the desire of helping people fight cognitive decline, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), dementia, and Parkinson’s disease. Yet, it has evolved to helping everyone at any age because of the massive applications to all population. In fact, Ms Anna Milani shared her vision about making Brain Fitness accessible to everyone so we can live a long, healthy, independent and empowered life
I wrote about rementia some time back. Alzheimer’s disease is caused by the accumulations of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary protein tangles in the brain. These accumulations are harmful and toxic to our brain, resulting in malfunctions and eventual death of the neurons in several brain areas related to cognition, including the hippocampus. The good news is that neuroscientists have been telling us that our adult brain is still capable of producing new neurons each day in the hippocampus via a process known as neurogenesis. Increasingly, neuroscientists are becoming convinced that our brain gets stimulated to produce new neurons and maintain these newly created neurons with physical exercise. By changing the synaptic structure as well as function in a few parts of the brain, and enhancing the clearance of toxic buildup of the amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary protein tangles, exercise not only improves learning and memory but also slows down neurodegeneration as seen in diseases like Alzheimer’s disease.
Armed with the neuroscience knowledge, I visited Sparkd gym. Guess what? I was excited by what I saw when I visited the gym. It did not feel intimidating despite the number of gym equipment and ‘high-tech’ equipment. In fact, it felt welcoming and safe with the equipment by the walls and wide, open spaces in the middle of the three zones – Gym Zone, Class Zone and Neuro Zone. Anna defined “Sparkd” as the effect of being sparked in your brain, the ignition of sparks as your neurons fire away in your brain (as seen in its logo) while you exercise and perform a cognitive-task or attention-focused task.
Anna is serious about wanting to empower others by enhancing their brain performance as her clients start their training programme with a cognitive assessment by Cambridge Brain Science as their baseline data. This baseline data helps the clients to see their improvement after going through the specially curated Cognitive Motor Training. Try out a demo version of the cognitive assessment here: https://health.cambridgebrainsciences.com/en/site/sparkd_demo/
In each session of the cognitive motor training, the client will simultaneously execute a physical and a cognitive task, such as jogging on-the-spot or doing squats or lunges while doing mathematical equations or memory games on the technological and interactive walls. This stimulates neuroplasticity which is the ability of the brain to rewire itself and create new connections especially in response to new learning and stimuli.
Anna advocates that it is never too early or too late to start with cognitive motor training. She has seen people train for a myriad of reasons, ranging from enhancing brain performance to slowing down early signs of subjective cognitive decline, a nagging feeling that you are not as sharp or fast as before, to diagnosis of MCI, early stages of dementia or other neurological conditions. Phew, it’s never too late and the good news is that Sparkd does offer trial sessions where participants get to try some of the training programmes with the use of its science-based gamified technologies. Hmmm… gamification… it certainly sounds fun, interactive and engaging. And if you are still convinced, Anna assured me that “the games are fun and you will not even realise you are exercising both your brain and body”. What are you waiting for? Check out Sparkd now and you’re your trial class for better brain performance @ https://www.sparkdfitness.com/