Improving Cognitive Performance: Our 3-Step Approach for Treating Cognitive Decline

While you’re moving around more slowly these days thanks to a little wear-and-tear in your body, your real frustration is the slowing down taking place in your brain. Perhaps you’re losing words or you can’t remember why you just walked into a room.

We assure you, you’re in excellent company. About two-thirds of Americans report some cognitive decline at around the age of 70, on average.

If, however, you feel that your issues have dipped below simply forgetting where you put the car keys, or you’ve been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, the team at Braincare Performance Center - Cardiff wants to introduce you to a great approach for improving and maintaining  cognitive function. Let’s take a look.

Behind the cognitive decline

As we just discussed, millions of Americans are dealing with cognitive decline as they get older and this is perfectly normal. Just as your body ages, so, too, does your brain. In many cases, this decline isn’t life-changing or worrisome, but there are times when the cognitive impairment is serious.

At the head of the list is Alzheimer’s disease, which affects nearly 7 million Americans, and this number is growing thanks to an aging population.

Outside of Alzheimer’s disease, there are other issues that can worsen cognitive performance as you age, such as:

• Side effects from certain medications
• Strokes
• Mental health issues such as depression or anxiety
• Having diabetes
• Sleep issues like insomnia
• Head injuries

Please note that we’re discussing cognitive decline, which is most often associated with aging, but a decline can occur among younger demographics thanks to brain injuries or other issues that affect brain health.

Improving cognitive performance

Whatever is causing your cognitive impairment, we want to introduce you to an innovative approach that directly targets and addresses your brain.

Broken down into three steps, here’s how it works:

1. Electroencephalogram (EEG) Brainwave Recording 

Our first step is to perform a painless qEEG for 10 minutes. This technology allows us to track the electrical activity in your brain to see which areas are active and which ones are more sluggish or even dormant.

2. Personalized NeuroSynchrony report

Next, we upload the results of your EEG into a specialized software program that helps us to identify where roadblocks may exist in your brain so that we know where to precisely target our treatments.

3. Personalized neuromodulation

Following your unique brain mapping, we then get started on your neuromodulation treatment, which includes magnetic e-resonance therapy (MeRT) and repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS). These technologies are designed to stimulate neural activity in the areas of your brain that have slowed down. By creating newer, healthier neural pathways in your brain, our goal is to improve your cognitive capabilities.

To give you an idea about how successful this approach can be, one meta analysis of 21 studies and 25 trials that reviewed using transcranial magnetic stimulation for mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease concluded that TMS was successful in improving cognitive function, both in the short and long term.

Our own successes here at Braincare Performance Center certainly back up these findings as we help patients to regain their cognitive function through precision guided therapy.

If you’d like to explore how we can help enhance your cognitive performance, we invite you to contact our office in Cardiff, California, at 858-306-1070 or schedule  an appointment online today.