STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Use it or lose it applies to the brain, according to a study of more than 2,000 persons of Medicare-age living independently in the community. Mental exercise for high-functioning seniors slowed the expected decline in their thinking ability even five years after a brief intervention, researchers here reported. However, the effect of cognitive training on functional skills — the ability to handle everyday tasks — was less clear and less compelling, according to a report in the Dec. 20 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Compared with an untreated control group, cognitive training resulted in improved cognitive abilities specific to the abilities trained that continued five years after the initiation, said Sherry Willis, Ph.D., of Pennsylvania State University here, and colleagues. But when it came to the failure of cognitive training to transfer to activities of daily living, it is possible, Dr. Willis said, that the full extent of cognitive training on everyday activities would take longer than five years in a population that was highly functioning at enrollment. The controlled single-blind trial recruited 2,832 adults in six U.S. cities (mean age, 73.6; 26% black) who lived independently […]