Are brain training exercises the solution to cognitive decline?

Research suggests that up to 45% of dementia cases are preventable, and with that in mind Jonathan deBurca Butler sets out to see if he can train his grey matter with some simple exercises

Jonathan deBurca Butler brushing his teeth with his non-dominant hand. Pictures: Gareth Chaney

A Sunday morning, the night after a 50th birthday party, is probably not the best day to start any sort of gym routine, let alone a brain gym, but such was my determination to start stretching my grey matter that I opened up the laptop and went through several online tests to determine the status of my current cognitive powers. A part of me also knew that if I did them in what was something of a sleepy and cognitively impaired state the only way was up, and in four weeks, when I was due to face the tests again, I would be a little closer to Homer than Homer Simpson.

In the space of about 30 minutes, I conducted three simple tests through humanbenchmark.com, a fun and popular online platform that offers a suite of free, interactive tests to measure cognitive abilities.