SAN FRANCISCO — Dr. Henry Mahncke, CEO of Posit Science, which makes the brain exercise app BrainHQ, addressed thought leaders in the Medicare Advantage industry at the Third Annual Medicare Advantage Leadership Innovations East Conference about reducing falls among older adults.
The annual risk of falls among seniors is high and increases with age: 33% of those 65+; 45% of those 75+; and 53% of those 80+. And falls are expensive – with annual costs in excess of $50 billion to the health care system.
“Most people think of fall risk as an issue caused by the body and the environment,” Dr. Mahncke said, “but the brain has the central role in keeping us on our feet. And that means that brain health – and proven brain exercises – can play an important role in fall prevention programs.”
Dr. Mahncke reviewed the neuroscience of falls, noting that people often make missteps, which they quickly correct in daily life. They do so when the brain processes information from sensors in the body, the inner ear, and the eye to make split-second adjustments to movement and gait – so quickly they may not even notice the misstep and its correction.
“Starting in our late twenties, most people begin to experience a slowing in brain processing,” Mahncke noted. “Initially, these changes are not even noticeable – measurable in thousandths of a second – but with passing years, the slowing accumulates, and the brain often fails in making split-second adjustments.”
Those failures in brain processing are an important cause of falls. Repeated falls indicate the further deterioration of the brain’s systems controlling balance and gait.
In recent decades, neuroscientists have developed computerized brain exercises shown to increase processing speed in older adults – with relatively small amounts of time spent training (typically, a total of 10 hours spread out over many weeks). In recent years, in multiple randomized controlled studies, those increases in brain speed have been shown to reduce both fall risk and fall incidence.
Dr. Mahncke reviewed three recent studies funded by the National Institute on Aging.
The first study – conducted at Chicago-area retirement communities among those at the cusp of high fall risk – showed the brain exercise group had significantly better fall risk after training than the control group, who progressed to high fall risk.
The second study of people at the cusp of high fall risk – conducted on Chicago’s South Side – showed the brain exercise group significantly reduced fall risk and improved in gait speed and distracted gait, while the control group progressed to high risk.
And, the third study, followed the fall incidence of 2,832 older adults over a 10-year period, and found that those in the brain exercise group with a prior history of falls had a 31% lower chance of subsequent falls, as compared to those with prior falls in the control group.
Dr. Mahncke concluded by presenting a Chronic Care Improvement Program focused on falls that could save Medicare Advantage plans tens of millions of dollars for every 1,000 patients enrolled.
Benefits of BrainHQ have been shown in hundreds of studies, including significant gains in measures of cognition (attention, processing speed, memory, decision-making), in measures of quality of life (depressive symptoms, confidence, safety, health-related quality of life), and in real-world measures (health outcomes, balance, driving, hearing, work). BrainHQ is offered, without charge, as a benefit by leading national and 5-star Medicare Advantage plans and by leading medical centers, clinics, and communities. Consumers can try a BrainHQ exercise for free daily at https://www.brainhq.com.