CogniFit - Updating

What is updating?

Updating is the ability to oversee actions and behavior as you carry out a task to ensure that it is being completed according to the plan of action. In other words, updating is what makes it possible to ensure that your behavior is appropriate for a given situation and is adapting to potentially changing circumstances. Updating makes it possible to identify and correct any change from the original plan, and is a function that we use countless times over the course of a day. Cognitive training and practice can improve updating.

Examples of updating

• Updating is a cognitive skill that we use constantly in our daily lives, in social settings as well as at work. For example, a carpenter will have to use updating to ensure that the bookshelf he or she is making is being cut and placed properly, while a programmer will have to constantly use updating to be sure that they haven't made any mistakes in their code. Any worker in any field will have to pay attention and make sure that they are doing their work properly.
• When a child is doing their math homework, they need to be able to pay attention to their work to make sure that they're adding correctly and writing down the right number. Students also have to make sure to take notes in class without making any mistakes, and updating makes it possible to monitor and detect any errors as they write.
• When you're driving to a specific location, you need to make sure to drive carefully and take the right exit. You'll use updating when making sure that you're going the right way and paying attention to the exits.
• You also use updating in a large number of daily activities, like when you're cooking, playing sports, writing, brushing your teeth, or getting dressed.

Problems and disorders associated with updating

It's normal to make a mistake during the day and not realize it until it's pointed out to you. This can happen to anyone, and it's no cause for worry. Updating should be assessed and monitored, however, if significant errors are made without realizing it. Problems with updating may make many other daily activities more difficult to complete.

Updating can be altered by a large number of disorders, the most common being Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). However, it is also updating is also altered by dyslexia, depression, anxiety, or dementia, like Alzheimer's. Brain damage, like stroke may also alter updating. Some specific altered states, like excess or lack of sleep, intoxication, or exaggerated emotions may reduce updating.

How can you measure and assess updating?

Updating allows you to quickly and accurately many of your daily activities, which is why assessing your updating ability can help you in different parts of your life. Academics, to help you predict if a student will have trouble writing to completing a task. Clinical/Medical, to know if a patient will have trouble driving, taking the right medication, or if they'll have trouble in their day-to-day lives. Professional, to see if a worker will be able to catch any errors in their work.

With the complete neuropsychological assessment from CogniFit, you can easily and accurately assess a number of different cognitive skills, like updating, shifting, hand-eye coordination, processing speed, inhibition, naming, contextual memory, working memory, visual memory, recognition, and response time.

• Synchronization Test UPDA-SHIF: Based on the classic Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). This test uses visual-motor coordination to make sure that the hand, which verifies the activity, and the hand, which carries out the action, are working together. If they are work in unison, brain activity will be balanced and the task will be carried out successfully. The cognitive areas associated with processing speed and updating will be activated.
• Equivalencies Test INH-REST: Based on the classic Stroop test. This test assesses the user's ability to discern between two different stimuli, attending to the relevant stimuli and ignoring irrelevant stimuli.
• Identification Test COM-NAM: This test used the classic test from Korkman, Kirk and Kemp from 1998 (NEPSY) and the classic Memory Malingering test (TOMM) as references to measure updating and other cognitive skills. With it, we can observe the user's ability to retain information and classify stimuli in their memory. The classification or order that we give objects or ideas is possible due to identifying similarities within a group.
• Processing Test REST-INH: Inspired by the classic Test of Variables of Attention, this task helps perceive and process a stimulus and respond to it.

How can you improve or rehabilitate updating?

Every cognitive skill, including updating, can be trained and improved. CogniFit may help you do it.

Neuroplasticity is what makes it possible to recover and improve updating and other cognitive skills. CogniFit has a battery of exercises designed to help recover updating and other cognitive deficits. Like the body's muscles, the brain and its neurons get stronger through continuous practice and use, which means that frequently training updating will help strengthen the neural connections it uses and make it stronger over time.

CogniFit has a team of specialists dedicated to studying synaptic plasticity and neurogenesis processes, which is the science behind CogniFit's personalized cognitive stimulation program. The personalized program starts with an initial cognitive evaluation to assess updating and other fundamental cognitive functions. Based on the results from this assessment, the program automatically creates personalized training program to suit the specific needs of each user.

Consistent training is the key to improving updating, and CogniFit has professional assessment and rehabilitation tools to help optimize this cognitive function. The best brain training only requires 15 minutes a day, two to three times a week.

The cognitive stimulation and assessments from CogniFit are available online and on mobile. There are a number of interactive activities and games that can help train and improve skills. CogniFit will automatically show you a detailed graph with your cognitive profile after each training session.