Brain training apps for seniors

Looking to sharpen your wits as you get older? Here are 10 apps that can help.

Training your brain doesn’t have to be hard and it doesn’t have to be a chore. There is an extensive range of brain training apps available to help you improve your memory, challenge your brain and fight off the effects of ageing. These apps can be downloaded straight to your smartphone or tablet, allowing you to train your brain whenever and wherever you want. And best of all, they make the brain training process a whole lot of fun.

Let’s take a look (in no particular order) at the 10 of the top brain training apps and the benefits they can offer you.

1. Lumosity

This popular brain training app provides a series of fun and challenging games to help you work on your memory, attention, problem solving, processing speed and flexibility of thinking. There are more than 25 brain games played against the clock, with detailed analysis to help you understand your strengths and weaknesses and how you can improve your brain function. Lumosity is available on Android and iOS.

2. Peak

This free app provides more than 40 fun games to help you exercise your brain. Peak is designed to improve your memory, sharpen your problem-solving skills and develop your mental agility. Each game has been developed by neuroscientists and the Coach feature offers in-depth insights to help you track your progress. Peak is available on Android and iOS devices.

3. Elevate

Selected as Apple’s App of the Year in 2014, Elevate is a free brain training app with more than 40 fun games to help you improve your cognitive skills. You can use the app to develop a personalised brain training program that focuses on skills such as memory, focus, processing speed, maths and comprehension. Detailed performance tracking is included and Elevate also features adaptive difficulty progression to ensure that you are always being challenged. Elevate is available on Android and iOS.

4. Fit Brains Trainer

This award-winning brain games app is designed to challenge both your cognitive and emotional intelligence. Fit Brains Trainer offers more than 60 games and over 500 workout sessions to target the six major areas of the brain: memory, speed of thinking, concentration, problem solving, language and visual-spatial. In-depth performance reports are also included so you can identify where you need to improve. Available on Android and iOS devices.

5. CogniFit Brain Fitness

CogniFit offers 25 brain games to train more than 20 cognitive skills. Though it might seem like the focus is on fun when playing this app, the games are designed to assess and improve key cognitive abilities such as memory, concentration and attention. CogniFit Brain Fitness is available for Android and iOS.

6. Mind Games

Offering over a dozen brain training exercises to challenge you daily, Mind Games focuses on a range of cognitive tasks including attention, face memory, basic arithmetic skills, attention to detail and mental flexibility. There are also tools available to help you track your progress and work out areas where you need to improve. Available for iOS and Android.

7. Memorado

Memorado is a fun brain training app full of games designed to improve your memory, concentration and logic. There are 24 mind games over 720 levels, with personalised daily workouts tailored to your wants and needs. In a unique twist, Memorado also includes four soothing “Mindfulness” exercises to help reduce stress. Available for iOS and Android.

8. Eidetic

This clever app uses a technique known as spaced repetition to help you remember anything you want, from important phone numbers to someone’s name. It tests you at increasing intervals and also includes a range of built-in learning features to help sharpen your skills. Available on iOS and Android.

9. NeuroNation

Promoted as fitness for your brain, the NeuroNation brain training app contains 25 personalised games to train memory, focus and intelligence. This allows you to improve your memory and focus, enhance your logical thinking powers and increase your overall intelligence. Available on iOS and Android devices.

10. Duolingo

While it’s not a brain training app per se, Duolingo still provides a rigorous challenge for your grey matter. It uses fun and engaging mini-games to help you grasp the basics of another language, including French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Italian and many more. Best of all, every lesson is free. Available on iOS and Android devices.

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