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Act Your Age

A new study reveals how acting keeps your brain young

What will you do in old age to keep your mind sharp? Perhaps crossword puzzles or Sudoku? As it turns out, these highly prescribed brain exercisers may not be the best method of fighting off mental decline. Researchers Helga and Tony Noice think you should try acting instead.

The Noices, who spent 15 years studying the effects of acting on the brain, discovered that the mental exercises actors have long used to hone their skills stimulate several parts of the brain at once, which is something a crossword puzzle cannot boast. In his sessions with the elderly, Tony Noice, an adjunct faculty member in the communications department at Elmhurst College and an actor himself, instructed his patients to “listen” when placed in a planned scene. This forced the participant to be more mentally involved in his or her surroundings. The result is improved cognition at a rate that is staggering: a 52 percent increase in problem-solving skills in those who have finished the eight-lesson course, compared to a 15 percent decline in those who received no treatment.

John King, a health science administrator at the National Institute of Aging, states “What they’ve done is design an intervention that does seem to have some benefit to cognition,” and he is interested in the Noices’ ability to train nursing-home activity directors. This would make the treatment cheaper and more widespread.

With the help of a $159,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, the Noices hope to create a manual that will allow nursing homes to implement their methods. -Sarah Richardson