Federation of Québec Alzheimer Societies BrainHQ Coaches Corner

Introduction

DynamicBrain, the Canadian partner of Posit Science, is thrilled that you’ll be using BrainHQ in your group training –and you should feel confident that it’s the best choice. Until recently, there haven’t been any good guidelines for choosing a brain-training program. But in 2015, the experts at the US Institute of Medicine (now called the National Academy of Medicine) released an important report that included a five-item checklist to use to determine if a brain-training program is scientifically proven—or if it’s making claims it can’t back up. To the best of our knowledge, BrainHQ is the only program that can check off all five of these questions, which include the documentation of both near transfer (improvement in cognitive function) and far transfer (improvement in real-world function), the use of active control groups, the evaluation of the maintenance of benefits over time, and evaluation by independent academic experts.

Read more about the Institute of Medicine checklist and evidence that BrainHQ meets this standard.

What that means is that all cognitive training programs are not created equally. BrainHQ sets the gold standard. Simply put, no other brain training program comes close to BrainHQ's level of scientific proof. Our exercises and assessments have been rigorously tested and scientifically proven to be beneficial in more than 200 independent, peer-reviewed research papers published in scientific journals—and many more studies are underway.

In this guide, we are sharing some best practices that were used by various groups, institutions, and organizations in the US and Canada using BrainHQ as part of a class and group training. While it's not intended to be all inclusive, it may trigger some new ideas when running your own class.

 

What Is BrainHQ?

General Information

BrainHQ is a series of brain-training exercises that your users can do online on a computer or tablet. They’re easy to learn, but powerfully effective. To learn about BrainHQ exercises design and the concept behind each exercise, click here.

 

The Science of Brain Plasticity

Brain plasticity is a common term used by neuroscientists, referring to the brain's ability to change at any age—for better or worse. As you might imagine, this flexibility plays an incredibly important role in brain development (or decline) and in shaping every person’s distinct personality. The science of brain plasticity is the basis of BrainHQ’s clinically proven brain training exercises.

Back in early 1970s, brain scientists believed that after childhood, the brain became set, composed of millions of tiny wires that carry electrical signals to process information. So in adults, the brain—like a computer chip—was thought to be “hard-wired” and incapable of change.

But over the course of the 1980s, a very different perspective emerged on how the brain works. Led by experiments from Dr. Michael Merzenich, a professor at the University of California San Francisco and the brain behind BrainHQ, scientists began to realize that the brain’s ability to change wasn’t unique to children: the adult brain continues to be soft-wired and rewires itself constantly, based on learning and experience. At any age, it can change in every important way–structurally, functionally, and chemically. The underlying science behind this brain change is called “brain plasticity.” Scientists now understand it is a fundamental principle of how the brain works throughout our lives—from infancy to old age and in sickness and health. This breakthrough has revolutionized our understanding of brain health and function.

Dr. Merzenich has studied brain plasticity throughout his career, publishing more than 150 articles in leading peer-reviewed journals (such as Science and Nature). He has been granted nearly 100 patents, and he and his work have been highlighted in hundreds of books about the brain. As a result of his work, he has received numerous scientific awards and prizes (including the Russ Prize, Ipsen Prize, Zülch Prize, Thomas Alva Edison Patent Award, and Purkinje Medal). In 2016, Dr. Merzenich was awarded the Kavli Prize—the world's top neuroscience prize—for his achievements in the field of brain plasticity.

In Dr. Merzenich's words:

 

How Information Processing Relates to Cognitive Performance

Different people have different levels of cognitive performance, because everyone has a unique history that has impacted their brain. Within a group of comparable healthy people, some people will have high cognitive performance, and others will have low cognitive performance. Many people experience a long, slow cognitive decline as they age, leading to “senior moments” and a feeling of “slowing down.” Other people have specific life events—like an accident or an illness—that immediately lead to cognitive challenges. And still others are “super agers” who experience little to no loss of cognitive function.

In many of these cases, regardless of the precise details of the situation, the root determinant of cognitive performance is information processing in the brain: it can be fast and accurate (leading to higher cognitive performance) or slower and less accurate—as if the brain is operating in the presence of internal static or “noise” (leading to lower cognitive performance).

For example, in normal aging, people (on the average) naturally begin to lose some of the photoreceptors in the eye that convert light into neural signals, and some of the hair cells in the ear that convert sound into neural signals. As a result, there is less input to the brain’s central visual and auditory systems. Because the brain is plastic, and reorganizes to deal with changes in input, the brain’s central visual and auditory systems begin to collect sensory input over longer periods of time and larger areas of the visual field and over more auditory frequencies—essentially “averaging” more over time and space. This leads to a “blurring” of information over time and space, meaning that information processing in the brain is slower and less accurate. As a result of this lower quality of information processing, the brain’s cognitive systems—memory, attention, and thinking—are not able to operate as well, leading to lower cognitive performance.

A real-world example of this can be found in the auditory system. If you put your thumb and forefinger on your voice box and make the sound “ba,” you will notice that your lips open and at the same time your voice box starts to vibrate. If you then make the sound “pa,” you will notice your lips open slightly before your voice box starts to vibrate. This little gap is called the “voice onset time” by phonologists who study speech, and it lasts about 40 milliseconds (a small fraction of a second–not very long!). For your brain to correctly tell the difference between a “ba” sound and a “pa” sound, your brain has to be able to operate this quickly–to know if that gap (that “voice onset time”) was there or not. Did you hear “pa” or “ba,” or in a real-word example, “pad” or “bad”? As people age, their brains generally begin to operate more slowly than this–and the result is that it is harder to tell a “pa” from a “ba,” as it is with many other sounds. It gets harder, for example, to hear in noisy restaurants or to understand what a fast-talking grandchild is saying.

These speech reception difficulties lead to verbal memory issues: if you don’t hear accurately, it’s hard to remember accurately later. This problem doesn’t lie in the ear—it’s a problem in the brain. In fact, researchers have shown you can create these exact same issues (worse speech reception and memory) in a young person, simply by having a young person do auditory cognitive tasks in a noisy environment—suggesting that an older person’s brain is like a “noisy” version of a younger person’s brain.

Another example can be found in the visual system. The ability of a person to rapidly notice objects in their peripheral vision in a single glance is called their “useful field of view” (UFOV). On average, as a person ages, their UFOV shrinks—when their attention is focused on the center of a scene, they aren’t able to notice objects in peripheral vision as quickly as someone with a larger UFOV. (A small UFOV has been compared to “looking at the world through a soda straw.”) As a result, older adults tend to have a higher incidence of car crashes, particularly at intersections, where staying safe requires noticing other cars in peripheral vision quickly and accurately. Again, this isn’t a change in the eye—it’s a change in the brain, where information processing from peripheral vision has become slower and less accurate.

A third example is when the brain has suffered an insult or injury—such as an injury (like a concussion or repeated blast exposure), a neurological issue (like multiple sclerosis, chemobrain, or HIV-associated neurocognitive impairment), or a psychiatric issue (like depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder). Regardless of the original cause of the issue—a brain injury, a medical issue, bad genes and bad luck—in virtually all these conditions, the brain is processing information with lower speed and accuracy. On careful sensory measurements, people exhibit decreased abilities to distinguish auditory and visual stimuli presented close together in time or space/frequency, indicating “noisy” brain information processing. People show difficulties with speech reception, particularly in noisy environments or with rapid speed (because processing speech requires fast, accurate information processing). On cognitive tests, people show problems with core cognitive functions, like attention, learning, working memory, and executive function. And in real life, they report feeling “brain fog,” or problems with concentration or multi-tasking. All of these cognitive and real-life issues have their root cause is noisy brain information processing–which is the result of a slower, less accurate brain.

As a final example, consider healthy adults with different levels of cognitive performance. One is a top performer with rapid processing speed, strong working memory, and high executive function. Another is average for their age—certainly not impaired, just typical. Scientists find that (in generally healthy people) these cognitive abilities are aligned—people with better speed have better working memory and executive function, and have better cognitive function on the whole. This is likely because the brain’s underlying ability to process information quickly and accurately underlies all of these interrelated cognitive abilities, explaining the great variation in cognitive abilities in an otherwise healthy population.

If you’d like, you can read a long scientific review paper about this idea.

 

How the BrainHQ Exercises Use Brain Plasticity to Improve Cognitive Performance

The BrainHQ exercises improve basic brain systems that contribute to cognitive performance and real-world function. While each exercise is different, they have a set of common, scientifically designed features:

• Speed: As you improve at many of the exercises, they speed up, presenting the stimuli more quickly. For example, the sounds might get faster, or the visual objects might flash by more quickly. This gradual increase is designed to push the brain to improve its speed of processing.
• Accuracy: Many exercises present increasingly challenging discriminations, which means that the items get more similar and harder to tell apart. For instance, two sounds might start off very different, and gradually become more and more similar. Or two visual objects might become more similar, or harder to spot on the background. The goal is to move the brain towards greater accuracy even at high speed.
• Adaptivity: Each exercise constantly adapts to an individual user’s performance. The goal is to keep people training at their “threshold,” where they are appropriately challenged. That means they get about 70-90% of the answers correct.
• Generalization: The exercises often start training with emphasized stimuli (such as slow, distinctive sounds or high-contrast objects) to drive plasticity strongly, and then move towards more naturalistic stimuli (such as rapid speech or realistic objects on natural backgrounds) to drive real-world generalization.
• Engagement: The exercises are designed to frequently and repetitively engage brain systems that involve attention, reward, and novelty. These systems are associated with important neurochemicals (acetylcholine, dopamine, and norepinephrine), which enhance learning and alertness.

 

Proven Results From BrainHQ

The brain exercises in BrainHQ have been used in multiple randomized controlled clinical trials (the gold standard for evaluating efficacy), which have led to more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific publications. These trials have documented improvements in processing speed, memory, attention, everyday cognition, vision & hearing, physical brain change, mood, quality of life, driving, and mobility and balance. For published studies, click here, here and here.

 

Compensatory Strategies vs. Neuroplastic Changes

Historically, people have been offered compensatory strategies to help manage their cognitive issues. For example, a person with memory issues can learn to use a notebook and a calendar to keep track of their to-do list and their appointments; and a person with visual speed and attention issues can be reminded to carefully check their mirrors when changing lanes in a car and look both ways when crossing an intersection. Although they can be helpful, these kinds of strategies and advice are “compensatory”—they compensate for cognitive problems rather than addressing the root cause of the problem.

Brain plasticity provides a new and different approach. Because we now recognize that the adult brain is plastic and capable of change, we can build computerized brain training exercises that directly improve the speed and accuracy of information processing, and as a result, improve overall cognitive and real-world functional performance. This approach addresses the root causes of cognitive function issues.

Compensatory training and plasticity-based brain training can work together. Strengthening core brain function with plasticity-based brain training can improve a person’s ability to benefit from strategy-based compensatory training; and strategy-based compensatory training can help bridge the benefits of plasticity-based brain training into real-world activities.

 

How Brain Health Coaching Can Help People Get the Most Out of BrainHQ

What Is Brain Health Coaching?

By “brain health coaching,” we mean providing structured advice and encouragement to help a person improve their life by improving their brain—and achieve their brain training goals. Understanding your user’s goals in brain health, connecting their experience in the exercises with those goals, helping them understand their progress, helping them notice their real world benefit—and most of all acting as their coach, their mentor, and their cheerleader—are the key activities of a brain health coach.

It’s more about motivational coaching—helping a user stick with their brain training—than it is about explaining neuroscience. You probably will have the opportunity to talk about brain plasticity and the science of the exercises, and you should make sure you feel familiar with that content. But you don’t have to be a brain scientist to be a brain health coach—you have to care about improving the lives of people by helping them improve their brain health.

An important part of your coaching will be helping people start brain training and maintain the motivation to continue brain training. It’s also important to help people celebrate and reflect on their achievements.

 

Why Provide Brain Health Coaching?

The short answer? It works.

BrainHQ works when people train their brains regularly, making progress through the exercise levels and improving their performance. That’s what rewires the brain through brain plasticity, and that’s what drives real world benefits.

People are more likely to train regularly, and are more able to make progress if they have a coach—someone who answers their questions, helps them when they have technical problems, encourages them to persist through challenges, and inspires them to be their best.

The focus of this section is on what you should do to prepare to be a brain health coach, and what you should do when you are providing brain health coaching to people.

 

Preparing to Be a Brain Health Coach

Using BrainHQ

The single best way for a coach to ensure the success of their users is to use BrainHQ themselves. As a coach, you should already have full access to BrainHQ, exactly as your users will.

We suggest that coaches familiarize themselves with the following key activities in BrainHQ:

• Logging in and logging out
• Resetting a password
• Starting training using Personal Trainer pre-configured “Custom Focus” program.
• Stopping training
• Setting training reminders
• Reviewing progress
• Using each brain training exercise in your users’ schedules

For reference, you can access all help materials regarding BrainHQ here.

 

Core Concepts in BrainHQ

BrainHQ is composed of a number of individual brain training exercises and each exercise is composed of a number of levels, which have different configurations of stimuli. For example, in Double Decision, some levels have Route 66 Sign positioned closer to the center of view and other levels have it positioned at the edge of the screen. Some levels have very simple backgrounds, while other levels have very complex backgrounds. Some levels have target vehicles that are very distinct, and other levels have target vehicles that are very similar.

The levels are organized into stages. There’s no deep meaning to a stage—it’s simply a way to group the levels, and it provides a structure for users if they are scheduled to train outside of the Personal Trainer. You can only see all of the stages and levels in an exercise from the exercise page.

The exercises themselves are grouped into cognitive domains: brain speed, attention, memory, people skills, intelligence, and navigation. The exercises are put in the domain that they primarily target, but it’s important to know that every exercise requires attention, every exercise targets speed in one way or another, and most exercises require some amount of memory. The domains simply provide an organizing framework for users.

 

Tracking Progress

BrainHQ provides continuous feedback regarding how a person is progressing throughout its use. You can find a few of them in sections below.

 

Percentile Scores

If your users have agreed to provide their year of birth and they are updated in their profile page, the percentile score compares them to all other BrainHQ users, or to people of different ages using the age slider. Percentile scores may be seen by clicking on the “Progress” tab, and then clicking on the “Percentile” tab.

You can read more about percentile scores here.

As a coach, there are a few things to know about percentile scores.

First, they can be confusing to people. A percentile of 50% means the user is average; lower than that is below average and higher is above average. But many users will think of their school days, and interpret a 50% percentile as an “F” (a failing grade), and interpret at 75% percentile as a “C” (an average grade in school, but a percentile score in BrainHQ indicating that they are performing better than ¾ of users). It’s important for you to clearly explain the concept of a percentile if you are working with a user who wants to track their percentile scores.

Second, as a user does more new levels within an exercise, their percentile score may decrease. For example, a person may have an 80% percentile score (meaning that their performance on all the exercise sets they have done is, on the average, higher than the scores of 80% of other BrainHQ users on those exercise sets). When that person first tries a new exercise set, they might get a typical (50th percentile) score on the exercise set. This will slightly lower their overall percentile score. Also, as a person moves onto higher and higher exercise sets, the BrainHQ users that person is compared to typically have higher and higher scores. Not every user gets to the higher exercise sets, and those that do have typically done a lot of training! What might be a good score at a lower exercise set might be an only average score on a higher exercise set. As a result, a person who is at the 80% percentile as they start BrainHQ may find their percentile decreasing as they move forward in BrainHQ because they are being compared to an increasingly elite group.

Finally, note that half of users will be below average—that’s how averages work. Users with low performance scores may find the percentile scores discouraging and demotivating. This may be particularly true if your group includes people with significant cognitive impairment, because they will be compared to the entire BrainHQ user base. Percentile scores are a better choice for a person who is competitive and comfortable comparing their scores to others. Typically, this is a person who is scoring well already, and wants reassurance that their scores are high—and wants to know how high they could go. If you find that a user is discouraged by their percentile score, try reminding them that continued training will raise their scores, or share with them the "Stars" that they have earned or their "BrainAQ" progress metric (see below).

 

Stars

Stars are earned when each level in a BrainHQ exercise is completed, and gives the person an idea of how their score compares to others who completed that level. Five stars means a score was among the best, while one star suggests the person should repeat that level to improve their performance.

BrainHQ keeps track of the total number of stars earned throughout all of a person’s training. Stars earned may be seen by clicking on the “Progress” tab, and then clicking on the “Stars Earned” tab. Many people find that the growing number of stars that they have earned gives them a strong sense of accomplishment and progress. This screen also shows a map of all BrainHQ exercise sets, color-coded by cognitive domain, showing the highest number of stars they have earned for each exercise set.

 

Levels

Levels are earned each time a BrainHQ level is completed. For clarity, a “level” in this context means completing one full set of trials in an exercise - for example, completing all 10 turns in a run through of Target Tracker, or all 35 turns in a run through of Hawk Eye. If that level is repeated multiple times, it counts as multiple levels completed. BrainHQ keeps track of the total number of levels completed throughout all of a person’s training. Levels completed may be seen by clicking on the “Progress” tab, and then clicking on the “Levels Complete” tab.

Remember, the term “level” can be confusing (as discussed above). A “level” typically refers to a unique exercise set in an exercise—for example, a “level” in Hawk Eye is shown as a single exercise tile in the Hawk Eye exercise page. The word “levels” in the plural generally refers to the number of times a user has completed a level in a session or in a week - for example, a user trained on 8 levels this week (which might mean 4 repetitions of a single level of Hawk Eye and 4 repetitions of a single level of Target Tracker). It’s usually clear from the context, but you should be aware of the difference when talking to your users.

 

Brain Activity Quotient (BrainAQ)

The BrainHQ Activity Quotient (BrainAQ) represents overall gains from training with BrainHQ and you can find it by clicking on the "Progress" tab.

As a brain health coach, you should know that the actual BrainAQ score and points are simply that—BrainAQ points. They are not designed to be interpreted as related to any particular cognitive score. Scores going up represent doing more levels (including new levels and repeated levels) and better performance on each level, and scores going down represent lack of training. People should not try to compare scores with others, and there is no particular score that is “bad” or “good.” What’s “good” is a growing score, reflecting ongoing training and performance improvements.

BrainAQ is a good choice for a person who wants to track their own progress, feel reassured that they are using BrainHQ correctly, and see they are making progress—but does not want to directly compare their performance to other people. People will generally see a line going up as they train regularly, and will see a slow decline in their score as they take a break from training. These straightforward messages—train regularly, and if you take a break for a while, return to training to boost your score—reinforce the right pattern of training in BrainHQ.

 

Key Steps in the Brain Health Coaching Journey With Your Participants

Learning Why a Person Wants to Train Their Brain

People engage in wellness programs—whether it is physical fitness, weight loss, sleep therapy, or stress reduction—because they want to get tangible, real-life benefits from the time and effort that they invest. Brain training is exactly the same: people start with BrainHQ, and continue to train with BrainHQ because they recognize that a better brain will lead to a better life.

Understanding a person’s goals, and explaining how those goals relate to brain health and cognitive performance is the crucial first step in this journey.

As a coach, you can help your users by:

1. understanding what their real-world goals are
2. helping them understand how a sharper, faster brain will help them achieve those goals
3. helping them see how the brain training exercises relate to those goals
4. helping them notice the real-world benefits they experience through brain training
5. helping them recognize any potential barriers to achieving these goals and how to overcome them
6. understanding their preferred coaching style:
   • Friendly: Someone I can really open up to
   • Motivator: An encourager who will keep me going
   • Tough-love: Someone to challenge and push me
   • Educator: Give me my to-do’s and let me take it from there
   • Peer: Someone to bounce ideas around with
7. setting expectations for your role as the coach to help create a safe space for honest feedback and open dialog

Ensuring A Person Has A Device and Internet Access for Home Training

To get a person started on BrainHQ at home, first check to see if they have the following:

• Tablet, laptop or desktop computer
• Internet connection
• A quiet space with little to no distractions

For those who have cognitive difficulties or may be less tech savvy, ask the user if they have a support person in their home who can join the coaching sessions.

Places that may provide access to a device for training and internet access:

• Local library
• Community center
• A neighbor, family member, or friend

 

Helping a Person Get Started With BrainHQ

After you talk with your user to understand their life goals and determine how those goals relate to cognitive function, it’s time for your user to start BrainHQ.

At this time,

• your users' accounts have been created, configured and ready to start
• you are provided with users’ login information (emails and passwords)
• a customized training program “Custom Focus” has been developed and displayed on users’ home page under Personal Trainer.
• users’ accounts are configured to complete 55 levels per week (11 levels per session, 5 times per week)

BrainHQ emphasizes completing a target number of levels per week instead of a target number of hours per week because completing levels (and improving performance) is what matters to the brain—not just sitting in front of a computer for a certain number of hours per week.

In the first in-person session, you guide your users to login to BrainHQ Canada in French at https://dynamicbrain-fr.brainhq.com, click on the Personal Trainer Custom Focus and continue training until they reach the end-of-session screen. The first class might be challenging for some users—like any other new experience. Reassure your users that they will feel confident and comfortable after a few days of training and getting familiar with BrainHQ.

The personal trainer uses smart algorithms that incorporate a person’s entire training history with BrainHQ—every level they have done and every performance score they have earned—to automatically select the best training level for them to do next. As such, even if all users start with the same set of exercises in the first session, that will change as the personal trainer continues to adapt to users’ performance.

 

Completing a Level—and an Exercise—in the Session

In a personal trainer session, the personal trainer repeats a level until the user earns 10 cumulative stars (or repeats five times). This permits a high performing user to move on to a next exercise quickly (after 2 repetitions), while giving a lower performing user the practice they need to improve their performance. If a user repeats a level 5 times, they are automatically done with the exercise for the day (so they don’t get stuck).

When a user completes an exercise for the session, they’ll see one of four badges on the end-of -exercise screen. They either:

• Passed the level (met or exceeded their performance target, passing the level)
• Completed the level (earned 10 cumulative stars, but did not meet or exceed the performance target on any of the level repetitions—so the level will be presented again in the next session)
• Completed the level (completed five repetitions, but did not earn 10 cumulative stars)
• Quit the exercise early (before either earning 10 cumulative stars or repeating the level 5 times)

Typically, when a user completes a level, they will also be done with the exercise for the day. But in some situations, the personal trainer will present the exercise again. If it does so, it will either repeat the existing level or choose a new level, depending on if the user passed the level.

As a coach, you can let your user know that the personal trainer is adapting to them—giving them more repetitions when they need them to improve on a level, and moving them on to a new level quickly when they show they are already performing well on an existing level. You can remind users that brain plasticity works by rewiring the brain, which takes intensive practice—that’s why BrainHQ is asking them to repeat levels. Remember that if a user has very low performance, or is struggling with an exercise, they will repeat five levels and then be done, regardless of how many cumulative stars they have earned.

 

Completing a Personal Trainer Session and the Level Goal

The personal trainer will continue to present exercises to a user until the user has completed a specified number of levels. This level goal is determined by the weekly level goal that has been configured for your users.

At the end of session, once users complete the pre-configured number of levels, they will see an end-of-session summary screen, including the various progress tiles they have earned in the session.

 

Talking With a Person During a Coaching Session

What you talk about—and how you talk about it—during a coaching session is the most important part of providing brain health coaching. Those interactions will help your users stay motivated, train regularly, and see benefits in their lives.

 

Discuss the User’s Recent Experience With BrainHQ

You should start each coaching session with a brief check-in. Ask how their last experience with BrainHQ was—what exercises they trained on, and how the training went. Did they understand the exercises, finish a complete personal trainer session, and feel success?

• Did they struggle to understand how to do an exercise? You should move right into helping them learn the exercise. You can open the exercise directly from the exercise selection screen. You can review the exercise tutorial by clicking on the “i” button in the exercise. Then have your user do the exercise while you narrate instructions to ensure that they understand how it works.
• Was an exercise particularly challenging? Talk about what was challenging about it. Perhaps it’s OK that it was challenging—remind your user that the brain must be challenged in order for brain plasticity to rewire the brain in a positive way. If the exercises are too easy, the brain doesn’t need to change. You may want to congratulate your user for persevering through the challenge.

Understanding the experience they are having with BrainHQ lays the foundation for the remainder of the coaching session.

 

Discuss How BrainHQ Exercises Relate to Personal Brain Health Goals

When you show a user a new exercise, or when you talk with a user about an exercise that they are struggling—or succeeding—with, you should always take the opportunity to connect what the exercise is designed to do for brain performance and cognitive function to the user’s own personal goals for brain health.

You can read about each exercise in detail here, so that you are familiar with the design and goals of each exercise and can help your users connect the exercises to their personal goals.

 

Discuss Progress the User Is Making

Every week before meeting with users, you should review their progress and their pattern of training across the last week. See if they met their training goal for the week. Did they do all their training on a single day, or spread across the week? Were there certain days where they trained very little or not at all?

If users achieved their goals, celebrate their achievement, and talk about what worked. If they did not achieve their goals, then talk about what got in the way and decide how you can help them.

• Technical issues?
• Personal life?
• Motivational issues?

 

Discuss Real-World Benefits

Over time, most people training regularly with BrainHQ will notice changes in their everyday life as a result of sharper brain function. Helping people notice these benefits - and relating these benefits to BrainHQ training - is an important part of maintaining motivation over time.

 

Addressing Participant Concerns

Like physical exercise, using BrainHQ to improve cognitive performance is hard work. Although BrainHQ exercises may look like routine computer games, each is scientifically designed to challenge users by accelerating in speed and growing in complexity as progress is made. Successful course leaders have shared a list of common issues raised by users and their corresponding responses and/or recommendations.

 

Checking In With Course Participants

We highly recommend that all coaches check in with their users individually and routinely to review progress and to answer any questions. Showing a user that their coach cares about their participation and supports their efforts is meaningful and can make all the difference in fostering engagement. Your users are on a journey to optimal brain health—show them that you are taking this important journey with them!

 

Participant Lacks Technology Experience

Some people using BrainHQ may lack basic knowledge about how to use a computer or iOS device. The good news is that, just by participating, those in your course are demonstrating their interest in and openness to engaging with technology to improve their brain health.

 

Participant Can’t Hear Sounds or See Objects

Participants with hearing assist devices or corrective lenses should wear them while using BrainHQ.

An inability to hear or see objects to a user’s satisfaction may be due to changes to their device settings, a need for environmental alterations while using BrainHQ, or due to their improvement within an exercise, moving to a more challenging level which requires patience and perseverance to allow further brain improvement.

If using BrainHQ in an in-person setting, you may wish to ask all users to limit conversation or discussion while the program is in use.

 

Participant Has Problems With Their Device

Sometimes, a user may experience frustration because the technical settings on the device they are working on were inadvertently altered. For example, perhaps the volume was turned down by mistake, or they are not viewing the exercise in full screen mode. In these cases, it is helpful to remind users how to change the volume, or change the screen view to full size on their device.

 

Participant Expresses Frustration

Frustration may occur in anyone when something is novel or challenging, or becomes increasingly difficult. It is a natural response, and it is important to remind users who mention frustration of this.

 

Participant Feels Like They Are on a “Losing Streak”

If a user feels that they have lost their rhythm or are on a downward spiral, suggest they use the pause button in the lower right hand corner to temporarily stop the exercise, stretch, take a few deep breaths or take a quick walk, and get back once they feel fresh and focused.

 

Participant Feels “Too Old” to Use BrainHQ

Olympic gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee said, “Age is no barrier. It's a limitation you put on your mind.” Like all things meaningful in life, expending energy on improving brain health requires work and commitment.

One of the amazing things about the brain is that it can learn new things and strengthen its neural pathways at any age. Each of us has the opportunity to help ensure that our “brainspan” matches our lifespan!

Participants may be surprised to find that countless centenarians have used BrainHQ successfully and have completed multiple courses.

 

Participant Feels They Are Comparing Poorly to Others

The brain isn’t “one size fits all.” Neither is cognition. Just like fingerprints, every person has unique cognitive strengths and weaknesses. The issue should not be “how do I compare in BrainHQ to others?” It should be “how far have I come since starting BrainHQ?”

BrainHQ was built to customize to the individual needs of the person using it in real time. This means that a person with greater visual processing abilities may progress more quickly through an exercise than someone without these abilities. This is not indicative of one person doing “better” than another, but rather each progressing through an exercise at a rate and level that is best for them and that will enhance their personal cognitive function.

 

Wrapping up Your Coaching Work

Your users will love you and appreciate all that you do for them—but eventually it will be time to wrap up with your users. At the final visit, revisit their goals to encourage users to continue their training and highlight their biggest accomplishments in BrainHQ. They will be confident, proficient users of BrainHQ, able to continue their brain health journey on their own. And you will want more time in your schedule to help the next set of BrainHQ users succeed.

In order to allow your users to subscribe directly at BrainHQ and continue training on their own, they should be first archived in the portal by the group administrator. Once that’s done, they will be able to login at https://dynamicbrain-fr.brainhq.com as usual and click on “S’ABONNER” on top of the page.

 

Contact Us

To learn more or get help,

• Email us at assistance@dynamicbrain.ca
• Visit our help portal at www.dynamicbrain.ca/centre-aide
• Visit us on the web at www.dynamicbrain.ca