Stronger Memory Program: A Breakthrough Approach to Improved Mental Function

Welcome to the Living to 100 Club Podcast. Here's our host, Dr. Joseph Casciani.

Welcome everyone to the Living to 100 Club Podcast, where we discuss strategies to live longer and stay positive about aging. We hear about programs and services and personal stories about successful aging and making it over the hurdles. Our goal is to create a mindset about living to 100 and turn aging on its head. Thanks for joining us today. I'm your host, Joseph Casciani. Our guest for today's program is Rob Liebreich. We're going to be discussing an innovative program on stimulating the brain through reading, narrative writing, and Basic Numerical Skills. Rob will discuss how this program has helped residents at Goodwin House, a continuing care retirement community in Virginia, especially those who are experiencing cognitive impairment, including his own mother. Rob was appointed President and CEO of Goodwin House in May 2019. His energy, compassion, and creative drive as well as his proven leadership in senior living, set him apart during a competitive 6-month national search for the new Goodwin House CEO. Prior to joining Goodwin House, Rob was the Executive Director of the Asbury Methodist Village, a not-for-profit continuing care retirement community in Gaithersburg, Maryland. He's also held senior positions in marketing and operations for senior living organizations in the Washington-Baltimore metro area and the Pacific Northwest. Rob studied business administration and international business and marketing at Georgetown University and holds a Master of Business Administration with a concentration in senior care and housing from Johns Hopkins University. Welcome to our program, Rob. Glad to have you with us.

Great to be with you.

Good, good. I always like to begin by asking our guests to tell us briefly about the journey that took you to where you are today.

Yeah, thank you. So my journey is probably similar to many folks. I had a personal experience that brought me into service of older adults. I grew up in Oregon, so I'm West Coast born and raised. And at a certain point in time, as you, as you read, I went out to Georgetown for education, uh, stuck around for a long time was started, started into telecommunications field. I was doing fine there and had an opportunity to travel around the world with who is now my wife for 6 months. And when we came back from that trip, we came back to Oregon to see my, my family, my dad's mom, who was set to move into a retirement community or a senior living community. And instead of moving in, she ended up passing away the day before that move-in was to take place. And I had a background in marketing and I had a background in operations. And for whatever reason, at that moment in time, a, something was, was turned on in me to go into service to older adults and try to come around folks and take the fear and anxiety that exists, uh, in these decision-making process and turn it into more hope and purpose. So, uh, that started in, uh, 2002. With getting educated and then being in service ever since. And it's been a wonderful, wonderful, joyful experience. And even I would say up to current, when residents ask me and people ask me, gosh, you know, great time to become a CEO, president of an organization during a pandemic. I can think of no better place to be in service to folks but during this time.

It's been an honor. Sure. Yeah. Thanks. So a lot of challenges and you have some very innovative programs there at Goodwin House. Can you tell our listeners about it and what types of services you offer?

Yeah. Goodwin House has been around, uh, since the late 1960s. So we're, we're coming up on 55 years in service to older adults. Our mission is to support, honor, and uplift the lives of older adults and the people who care for them. And so that mission really calls us to action on a regular basis, not just for our Goodwin House constituents, but for a broader, a broader purpose. But in particular, you know, Goodwin House has been known for, for this line of innovation for years. And so we started off with a single community serving folks in independent living, mostly assisted living, memory care, skilled nursing. We then duplicated that community. So we had two communities that are just about 2 miles away from each other in Northern Virginia, one in Alexandria, one in Falls Church area in the Washington, D.C. market, and both have the same type of services. We then added to that hospice and palliative care services, private duty home care services. We actually are the first operator of a continuum at home service. People don't have to move to a community to receive the benefits and services from Goodwin House. They can stay right in their own home. That's called Goodwin House at Home. About 200 members in that service and just about to roll that out to Washington, DC. Then in January of 2020, we acquired a certified home health operation, which allows us to bring nurses and therapists into one's home. For recovery purposes versus having to send someone to a skilled nursing environment for recovery. And then also in June of 2020, I launched our brain health initiative, which is what we're probably focused on today, which is Stronger Memory. And that came after a lot of good pilot programs with our residents and our members of the Goodwin House and Home program.

Yeah, well, that's quite a collection of services. I mean, both on campus and in the home. I mean, CCRCs, those are the two facilities you have in McLean and Alexandria?

Yeah, Falls Church and out in Alexandria. That's right.

Okay. Plus the home health and other programs for people still living in the community.

That's right. And actually, you mentioned McLean. We've been supporting a HUD 202 housing project called the Lewinsville Retirement Residence. There for over 20 years with financial support services along with human resource services. So we're even broader than I even referenced before.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. I mean, kudos to you for managing— the breadth is impressive. So I'm anxious to hear more about the Brain Health Program, and I know that's what we're going to be talking more about. But again, you're doing some great work there, and with this collection of services both on-site and in the home. I think that's really important. So tell us about the memory program, the brain health program. What's the origin of it? How did it start?

Yeah, great question. It probably started before I knew it started. And so it probably— if I think about it, I remember coming into the field in service to older adults in 2002. And when I first came in, I was really excited to be— I was in the marketing role, a marketing capacity. And I'd go around to different campuses and I'd ask people, crowds of older adults, I'd say, "Oh, okay, well, how many of you want to live to 100?" And I, you know, just in line with your club, right? And I was really shocked that I probably would get maybe 50% of the audience raising their hands. And these were folks that were already well on their way. I mean, they're already in their 70s, 80s, 90s. Some were probably just knocking on the door of 100. And so I found it fascinating to think about why is it that not everyone's raising their hand? And certainly that was an impetus for a lot of conversations. But basically two things came out of that conversation when I was asking those questions, sort of diving in, trying to understand further. One was a fear of running out of money because people financially didn't feel like they were going to be okay and would have things dictated to them, for them, on their behalf, versus having the chance to make their own decisions. So I know that your program has had a number of folks to really come around that idea, that focus of financial longevity. And that's really important. And the second thing that I heard was a number of folks were really afraid of losing their mind. They really wanted their cognitive health to to be in place, their brain health to be in place. And they knew, as they, as they had read, that as you got older, the chances of having a decline in your cognitive ability rose significantly. And so, although it's not an inevitability, certainly the chances were getting worse and worse that you were going to be able to avoid having some type of cognitive decline. So I would say that's probably where things started in terms of curiosity. But it was 9 years later when I was, you know, sort of 2011 and having an experience with my own mom that things started to really come around and recognize that something has to be out there for hope, not just for trying to figure something out, but having no solutions like that. That is just running up against a brick wall at the time. And that's what I felt for people with brain challenges or cognitive decline. There was really no hope out there. Just a lot of, well, you could try this, but no guarantees, or, you know, you could try this, but it really won't help you in the long term. And so in 2011, my mom had done some testing, and, and we sensed that there were some, some brain cognitive challenges. She was in her late 60s at the time, 68 at the time, and she was starting to forget things, and she was starting to repeat herself, and to the point where at one point in time she actually while driving, got lost in a familiar area. And so, uh, you and I can agree that, you know, your first step is to rule out all kinds of other things. You know, what else is going on in your life? Is there vitamin deficiencies? Is there a thyroid issue? Is there sleep issues?

Is there—

like, the list is long, and all those were ruled out. And my mom is, uh, is not a smoker. She's not a heavy drinker. She exercises every day, so she's relatively healthy. She's very social.. And, and so she has a lot of the good, good potential markers for a very positive, healthy living for, for many years. But here we were with her repeating herself and having challenges. And when she told me this, you know, I was hearing it from my mom. I was also hearing it from my dad. You know, my parents have been married now for, for over 50 years. It's fantastic, very loving relationship. But my dad was getting scared. I think that was really a challenge. So, I am listening to this and I am thinking to myself, OK, I have been at this for 9 years in service to others. My mom has got an issue.

Let me come around it.

Let me see if there is a solution. But I had no solutions at the time and I wanted to do something for her, but I had no tools. So, fast forward into 2012. I was able to go to a conference. It's called a Leading Age Conference. It's for not-for-profit providers of continuum living typically. And it was in Denver and they were having a report out at the time, Joe. And it was from a group out of Japan that for the last, at that time, and this is 2012, for 15 years, they had been using some tools, what they call learning therapies, for 15 years in a nursing home environment.. And they've had, had really good success with skilled nursing folks with dementia. And they were at the, you know, toward the nth degree and stage of life and stage of the disease progression, excuse me, for, for dementias. And they had inserted this idea that if you could read out loud, do some handwriting or probably some character work, or, and have some numeracy focus. So counting numbers or even doing some simple math, that you could actually see the cognitive decline plateau. And in some cases actually improve on cognitive testing. So they saw that in Japan for 15 years, and they did a translation of that program into the United States, into a nursing home in Ohio called Eliza Jennings.. And they were doing a report out at that conference in 2012. They had taken the same, same program, translated it from Japanese to English, and they found the same results. To every person who was involved in that program, they found that their cognitive decline either stabilized or improved. And certainly the behavioral elements of individuals also improved anecdotally. And so that was really compelling.

Can I interrupt a second, Rob? Of course. What level of impairment did they work with residents in? I mean, early, mild, or moderate, late?

Yeah, a lot of these folks were moderate, late. A lot of these folks were moderate, late. You know, certainly they did— they took it a little bit upstream, but it was nursing home focused, right? So these folks needed care for a variety of reasons, but cognitive decline was a big part of it.

Wow. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. So that, that wow statement that you just said is how I reacted. I was like, wow, this is fantastic. Like there's, there's something here. And I wondered if we could take that, what I call upstream. Could you introduce that sooner? Those same tools, that same approach of reading out loud, handwriting, doing basic math quickly. And if you could introduce it sooner, could it have a positive effect on one's brain health? And so that's where I came with my mom and said, hey, I just came back from this conference, Mom. How would you like to enroll in a program where first graders and second graders are your colleagues? Because I needed a quick math program. I didn't have one around, didn't have a curriculum. And so I said, hey, there's Kumon Learning. Which is actually the parent entity of the program that came from Japan called Saito Learning. And she said, "Sure, I am so afraid, Rob, of where my brain is right now. I am so interested to come around and do something for my brain health that I will try anything." And so, she had the awareness to do that. And it was amazing, Joe, within a month of her being intentional about doing handwriting, reading out loud, and doing basic math quickly on a daily basis, typically about a 20 to 30 minute regimen for her, and then checking in with someone weekly. This is where the Kumon at the time was really important, to go, to go to a space, to go to someone and say, yeah, I'm doing my homework, right? Because we know that sometimes when you get started on something, it's hard to stick with it unless someone's holding you accountable. And so she had an accountability measure She had the motivation because she didn't want to lose her cognitive abilities any further. And within a month, all of a sudden, her repeating sentences went away, her forgetfulness went away. She hasn't been lost in known places since. And it's been an amazing gift for the last 9 years.

Wow. Yeah, that is amazing. So prior to starting the program, she had some independent assessments, some Neuropsych evals— was there a formal diagnosis? Was it mild cognitive impairment? Was it dementia?

Yeah, she was on the path of mild cognitive impairment, which, which you and I can talk about and recognize. There's, I guess, the estimates about 10 million folks in the United States are at the stage of mild cognitive impairment, and within about 5 years of that diagnosis, about 38% of folks transition into a formal dementia. And so she was certainly on the path, but she could still, you know, do things and still function for the most part in every part of her life. It was just getting harder and harder.

So the MCI sometimes progresses into that primary degenerative dementia, but not always, right?

That's right.

That's right. You didn't know what the path was for your mother. You just saw this progression of her symptoms and then you introduced the program and you saw some leveling off of her cognitive impairment or dysfunction.

Yeah, I mean, you and I again can agree there's no cure for dementia out there, at least not known, but at least symptomatically. And the thought was, could you tackle the symptoms? Could you do something for those? And so what we're on the journey of is pushing those out as far as we can, even if the disease itself is progressing or whatever's going on with their brain is still going on. Can we push off the symptoms, the impact to her daily life long enough that something else will happen? And it won't be because she lost her mind, so to speak, or lost her cognition.

And at some point, maybe some other interventions will come along, maybe some of the newer medications, yeah, that might be effective. I mean, right now the meds are, as you know, symptomatic mostly, and they can reduce some of the symptoms, but certainly cannot reverse or treat or cure in any way. Yeah, so that's interesting. Of course, it's much safer than the medication. There's no side effects. And tell us about the, the 3, uh, tasks. There's reading aloud, writing, narrative writing, and some numerical problem solving. What's involved in the reading aloud? I mean, is it just opening a book and reading?

Yeah, it's that simple. And it sounds crazy, right? But what I really love about this awareness that came out of Japan from Dr. Kawashima at Tohoku University is that these are simple and accessible to everyone. So your listeners today could start on the path today or tomorrow. And if they're committed to it, 20 to 30 minutes a day, My sense of it is within 30 days they'll, they'll know something is, is different or going on or stabilizing, uh, in a lot of cases. And so I had a resident, uh, who sat with me at lunch recently, and she said, I've heard about your program, sounds fantastic. We have, we have a number, about 100 residents who have utilized the program out of our 950 residents. And, and so this one resident said, you know, I've heard about your program Sounds great. I am not going to do it. I said, oh, OK, that is fine. I mean, no pride here. I just want to give something, a tool, a pathway that we found with my mom worked well. Like, as many people can use it, it is great. And then she went on to say, I am not going to use it, but I read the Bible every day. And so now, instead of reading it silently, I am reading it out loud. And then she went on to say, and I have to tell you, Rob, my focus is so much better. Now that I'm reading it out loud.

Wow.

Okay, great.

It's already started it. Yes.

Yeah, yeah. So I love, I love, you know, if everyone decides not to do the program but decides to read out loud, fantastic. That works well. And then as it relates to, you know, we found a lot of folks are reading in pairs and partnerships. So this is sort of a new phenomenon. We know how valuable socialization is and having someone to wake up and connect with. A friend or otherwise. And so now, even my mom, now she's progressed in her, her programmatic approach. Every morning she wakes up, she's got a book that she's reading with a friend. They call each other early in the morning, they read for 15-20 minutes, and they love it.

They love it.

Now they're not connecting on a book, and it's a nice social way. We have other folks that are connecting with, uh, intergenerationally, you know, either the grandkids or volunteering to read to kids in their markets, and that's really great too. So lots of ways to find reading out loud partners.

Yeah, so a minimum of like 30 minutes a few times a week.

Yeah, so overall what we've experienced is if folks are focused on 1, 2, 3, you know, it's an and/or proposition, 1, 2, or 3 of these things, 20 to 30 minutes a day, at least 4 times a week, folks seem to see the benefits of it come alive. 5 times better, you know, every day even better. But folks could be reading out loud for that period of time. They could be doing handwriting. We get a lot of questions about that. You know, is it okay to type? Not the same experience. And so handwriting is really important. Folks that we found for handwriting, journaling has been really popular for folks to do a journal. A diary. Other folks have been writing their, their story, their life story. And we, in our curriculum that, that's available for free, is it's got, you know, 150 writing prompts for folks. And what we didn't expect from those is couples in particular have come and said, you know, these questions are fantastic because now I can, I can give these the answers to my kids, to our, to our family. But, you know, my spouse and I are having conversations we haven't had for 40 years. And we're sitting down and really getting engaged in, in some of the thoughts and memories and some of the, the ways that the questions are prompting us. So there's a whole other element of socialization and sort of life benefit that comes from the handwriting side.

Let me ask you about the reading itself. It's different between reading silently and reading aloud. I know you sent me a slide, maybe of some MRIs that show the different physiology That's right, between one and the other. Do we know why the reading aloud is more powerful?

Yeah, I'm not a neurologist, uh, I don't know enough about that side of it, but you know, the—

what the—

the picture that I sent to you was Dr. Kawashima's work, and he was showing people that in silent thought only a very small part of the brain gets engaged, whereas when you're verbalizing, reading out loud so much more of the brain gets engaged in that process. Similarly, he found that with doing handwriting, same kind of thing. But with math, this was really a surprise. Doing simple math quickly engaged a very active part, a lot of the brain. And certainly what they call the prefrontal cortex in particular, or where the working memory gets engaged. And when people did harder problems, a very small part of the brain got engaged. And so the goal, I believe, of this effort is to engage as much of the brain or get that brain lit up as much as possible. And so doing these basic things, these simple things, seem to have a really good power around that working memory.

So the simpler number problems activate larger portions of the brain.

Yeah, done quickly. And I think, um, again, I'm not an expert in these areas, but, you know, I think there's a lot of discussion about neuroplasticity, the abilities, uh, the ability of one's brain to learn new things and to grow and take on new. This doesn't require that, right? What we're talking about, the reading out loud, the doing handwriting, doing basic math, all that is already ingrained tools that the brain already has experienced for years and years and years., and it's well embedded. So even people who are further along the path of dementia have capacities and capabilities that they can call up often in a lot of cases. So I think we're trying to reconnect with already existing pathways. And by doing that, what I've experienced with residents that we've rolled this out to is people certainly have better focus. I had a resident when we first started this that had forgotten his sister's name altogether. He was in an assisted living setting, and within 2 weeks, you know, the recall for his sister's name was back again, and he could engage. So it's very powerful, and it can happen very quickly, and it's, uh, it's been a real blessing.

Yeah, it sounds quite, quite impressive. And of course, it sounds like if there is any explanation, it may be on that same track of the neurogenesis. I mean, the ability of the brain to grow new nerve connections, new fibers. And although we don't know yet, you don't exactly know why this is working, but I mean, would you agree with that, that it seems to be along that same—

yeah, I think that could be right. My sense is that it's connecting with elements that are in that, in one's brain already You know, it's, it's very quick and powerful in that regard. And people, you know, one of the things about the math, for example, Joe, is you have to get the math right. So it's not about getting the answer right. It's about going through the problem and just going through the exercise. So again, I think it's coming back to that first grade, second grade feel and just reconnecting. So you don't have to learn to tango or you don't have to learn a new language like Chinese necessarily to get your brain going, although those are all good things, I'm sure. This is showing that folks, whether you have a cognitive challenge or don't, you can really sense an improvement of your focus, ability for recall. We have a resident, a lady who's been using the program. She said, I've been walking in my neighborhood for years. I walk past people and their dogs. I never can recall their names. I can never recall their dog's names. And now she's like, well, that was, you know, Chris and Toto. And like, she gets it now. And it's The only difference is that she's focused 20 to 30 minutes a day on engaging her brain in this way.

Yeah. So as you talk about the math problems and not having to get the answers right, it makes me think that for learning a new skill, like maybe learning how to dance, we don't have to get the steps right to benefit from that learning just as much, right? I mean, it's great if the steps are right. If they're not, it's just as powerful, just as beneficial to be learning a new task.

Yeah, I think, I think that could be right. I think that, that sounds right, um, from what I know.

Yeah. So you've seen it in residence there at Goodwin House and, uh, you've had some very positive responses, some favorable outcomes.

You know, one of the things that I, that a long time, uh, conversation has been around, uh, you know, what kind of research, uh, are you bringing to the table? And so, um, Saito, when they first came in, they did a study and could show that programmatic success, you know, sort of 6 months later. We've been doing the same thing, doing testing at the before and then, you know, after the program, after people have been through the program for a period of time, typically about 15 to 16 weeks, and seeing the same results, you know, cognitive plateauing or, you know, or improvements, and which is great. We've also engaged with a group called Village to Village Network. So there's about 350 villages throughout the country, started in Boston area, a place called Beacon Hill, and a great, great organization where there are neighbors that have come together to try to keep each other aging in place more successfully and connect with each other socially and figure out what kind of vendors to use, et cetera. And so there's about 350 chapters representing about 50,000 individuals throughout the country. And we've really been engaging with them, launched a national program with them. Started off with, of the 350, started off with 17 of their chapters and just to test it out, just to see. And again, seen really good results very quickly. So we're trying to do from Goodwin House perspective is share this and get it out as rapidly as possible, have as many people utilize it as possible. We have a full facilitator's guide for people to start their own groups and to get going on it. We're also working with a group called Brain Exercise Initiative, which is a group of 1,000 volunteers that are college students, started out of UCLA. That group has the same Dr. Kawashima appreciation, and they're really excited. They're helping us to create a way for people to check in every day via Zoom or Google. You know, I forget which the platform will be, but to have a check-in every day where people can come together and just say, here's what I'm doing, here's how I'm feeling. Having that accountability, that socialization element, certainly we think is very important.

Now, the observer or someone hearing about this would say, great, these are nice anecdotal studies or reports. Do we have any formal research underway? I think you mentioned— is it George Mason University?

Yeah, that's right, George Mason University. Two professors there have taken up the charge for studying the initial results, did interviews with 24 folks and all the testing that we had done in our pilot programs in our initial launch. And found it to be a tremendously beneficial brain health intervention, which was great. And they're now doing additional studies of upwards of about 100 individuals that they're tracking right now to pull the results. And very excited about that. I think that will help— proof in the pudding is already there. We already see it with our residents, or my mom, our residents in and around the nation. And certainly having George Mason University, the professors there validate, will be even more helpful.

Yeah, that's so important. Is there any— anything published yet? Any research published?

Uh, they have an initial report that's out, and they're doing a presentation of that at the Gerontological Society of America in November. And, uh, and then they've got the second, um, sort of— they're having that peer-reviewed right now, as I understand it. I'm not— you're probably more aware of the process than I am, but my understanding is that that is being peer-reviewed for additional consideration, and then secondary report is coming out post the additional 100 participants in the study.

Well, so they're announcing it at GSA this fall?

Yeah, they're going to be— that's right.

Early findings. Well, good. You should be proud of that.

I am excited. I actually, I don't know what it means other than hopefully some smart people will look at it and go, oh, okay, this does work. And then more people will say, oh, great, let's try it out. As you referenced, there's no downside to doing this today. So I hope people don't wait. We certainly hope people will jump on as soon as possible, download the curriculum. There's about a 250-page book out there. If you don't want to download it, you can buy it. We're selling it at cost. We want to not have any impediment to people getting this approach and starting to use it today.

So tell us how to access that, those materials.

Yeah, so if people go to goodwinhouse.org, goodwinhouse.org/stronger-memory, so those are the Stronger Memory, or if you, if anyone wants to just look up Stronger Memory in Google, uh, we'll come up fairly fast right there.

Okay, and what's available there? They can download the materials, the instructions?

Yes, they can download the full curriculum of the 250 pages worth of curriculum. And actually, we have 5 additional what we call stages available now. And so it's about 16 weeks worth of material that folks can start on. And then if folks need a facilitator's guide, they can reach out to us at strongermemory@goodwinhouse.org, and we'll be happy to provide them a facilitator's guide That works really well with church groups, synagogues, mosques, ashrams that want to start this up, or Rotary groups, et cetera, that are interested to embark on this and have someone facilitate the program and keep it going in their market or their neighborhood.

Wow. So that's the email address, strongermemory@goodwoodhouse.org? Yes. So for more specific pointed questions, they can go there?

Absolutely.

Yeah, that's great. Now, how's your mother doing?

She's fantastic. I mean, really, she's teaching bridge, she's learned mahjong not too recently, and I think from that vantage point, from a cognitive standpoint, she's amazing. You know, she's 9 years older, so, you know, life continues, but she's had a chance to meet many of her grandchildren that she wouldn't have had a chance to meet. She's been able to create real memories with them. And so I would say from that vantage point, it's been a real blessing. And I think that was the real goal— come around this fear, put it, put it to rest, and then, you know, make great memories and live a meaningful life and a real positive life.

Yeah, I mean, that in itself is great. But as you mentioned, the, the spin-off benefits in terms of the increased socialization, interaction, and opportunities for intergenerational contact and working with other groups. I mean, there's just a lot of, a lot of upside.

We, we absolutely believe so. And, and so grateful for you and your listeners to help spread the word and, uh, get it out to as many people as possible. Uh, we're, again, we're, we're a faith-based not-for-profit. Uh, so we're not in this for any kind of money-making exercise. It's purely, we found something that works really well. We want to share it as much as possible. And there's no medicines involved. There's no side effects other than we think some really good positive potential for folks.

Have you heard, and not to wrap up on a negative note, but have you heard any criticisms from like healthcare professionals, doctors, neurologists? Has anyone found fault with it? No.

No, no. You know, the hardest thing about it, the program, like any program, like you and I would agree for exercise, It's just to stay consistent with it. And so I think folks, when they get started, it's so simple that sometimes people discount it because it's so simple. And it's in the simplicity where there's power. And the simplicity combined with consistency is the real antidote for what we are trying to come around.

Yeah. Yeah, well, that's so true of any new behavior and any new endeavor. To be consistent and tenacious and, you know, persevere with it. That's where the payoff comes in.

Right.

Have you seen any individuals who did not benefit, who continued to show some decline?

Uh, I'm sure they're out there. Uh, for, for what we've noticed for folks that have stayed consistent with the program. So if you're doing it 4+ times a week, uh, most folks are either stabilizing, almost everyone is either stabilizing or improving. The folks that haven't done it as consistently, you know, certainly have, have continued on, on their decline. We had one resident who's done it for, I think, 30 weeks now, and she said, gosh, I'm not seeing any improvement. I'm not seeing any decline, but I'm not seeing any improvement. And for that, we'd say fantastic, great job. Uh, you know, stability is a win. Uh, so is improving, but stability is a win. So I think just having people have the right expectations, you know, this can absolutely be blended into your everyday life. So hopefully it's not a burden, but as long as people's expectations are, you know, or have a plateau here, right? Have a plateau, that's going to be okay. And if we have improvement, even better.

Yeah, yeah, I can see that where you want to keep the expectations realistic because expecting immediate results or, you know, miracle turnaround They're going to be disappointed and frustrated. Yeah. So keep the expectations at a minimum level and that's right. You know, reinforce that consistency and that continuity. And that's, that's where we're likely to see some improvement. Yeah.

And it takes about a month. I mean, it's not, it's not instantaneous, right? So the brain has to get reacclimated with these elements is what we're noticing. So for most folks, before they see that either plateau or improvement, it does take about a month of consistent work.

Well, that's a great story, Rob. I commend you for your, you know, your interest in pursuing this and your desire to, you know, solidify it, make it available. And again, the importance as I see it is having that scientific data backing it up. That's— yeah, thanks for sharing that with us.

I really appreciate it. Again, I hope your listeners take advantage of, of the opportunity. Jump in., you know, and, and see for themselves. They don't need our curriculum to get started. They can just start picking up a book and, and reading. It does help to have someone that you're accountable to. So a partner, a friend, a spouse, a neighbor, a grandchild, someone to start building that commitment with is really helpful.

Sure. Yeah. So again, the website is goodwinhouse.org/stronger-memory.

Yes.

For that content. And emails can go to strongermemory@goodwinhouse.org.

That's right.

That's right. Great. Okay. Well, it looks like we're out of time for today, Rob. Before we wrap up though, I want to remind our listeners about a few items. I'm pleased to announce a new co-sponsor for our podcast with our program, A Mighty Good Time. Are you looking for ways to engage and stay active? Check out amightygoodtime.com. It's a one-stop shop for events and activities for those 50 and over. You might want to talk to them, Rob, about having your program added because it's free to search and free to post for visitors. A Mighty Good Time dot com. Also be sure to visit our website and see the option to work with Dr. Joe. That's me. For one-on-one conversations about managing setbacks, overcoming a negative outlook, and getting back to feeling engaged and motivated. Visit the Work with Dr. Joe page on our website and see the options available. You can also pick up a copy of my book on Amazon, Living Longer Is the New Normal. I think that whatever age you're at, inspiration and a positive mindset can be put to good use. That's my message in the book and something I'm sure our guests would agree with today. Be sure to sign up also for our email list for announcements and newsletters, reliable information and resources about moving forward. And while you're there, you can download a copy of my 9 Tips for Living Longer. It's loaded with practical and useful strategies for successful aging and staying positive. livingto100.club. Rob, thanks again for being a guest on our show today. For those who might want to contact you, they can reach you at that same email that we already discussed, strongermemory@goodwinhouse.org. Okay, well, thanks to everyone for tuning in and hope to see you next time. Hi, I'm Laurie LeBay, and I wanted to tell you about Alzheimer Speaks, which is another great podcast.

You see, my own mother lived with dementia for 30 years, and I felt lost.

Did you know every 3 seconds someone in the world is being diagnosed with dementia? Odds are it's going to hit your families too. We want to help you connect to services, products, tools, research, and stories so you can be prepared. Please subscribe to Alzheimer Speaks on your favorite podcast platform.