Chess for Oldtimers --- Good Idea !

I suck at spelling, as bad as chess.

There are a lot of players on this site where dementia/senility has already started. [I am one of them]

You just have to do the best you can with what you have...

72 is too young for that.

We all have to face that age at some point. Hopefully, the game we love now will keep our brains going when that time reaches. All the Best to all you "seasoned" players.

72 isn't considered all that old, when it comes to dementia. I know people in their late 90s, still thinking clear as ever.

People can get some degree of dementia or senility at any age above 60.

And it does not necessarily depend on how active someone is in their thinking. 

Thanks for all of the recent posts.

One thing that seems clear from a lot of the studies out there is that each person's mind works differently ( and ages differently ). Also anyone that plays a contact sport that may involve injuries to the head is at greater risk than the avarage person. The NHL has recently had a commitee looking at the serious long-term effects of head injuries. 

Yes, it appears that pro football players live a lifespan of about 20 years less than average due to their injuries.  There has to be some better safeguards if possible.

Hey, Cab, (if I may call you that -- ) I think one thing that keeps this forum going is your quite lovely habit of periodically thanking people for their comments! --- so, Thanks for doing that!

Thanks for thanking Cab for thanking people for their comments!

Thanks for thanking motherinlaw for thanking Cab for thanking people for their comments.

Thanks for complimenting me on my "common sense!"  I'm spent most of my life limping along with nothing but "book sense," and I'm genuinely pleased to have developed some "common sense."  (BTW, those two kinds of "sense" are actually 2 separate categories of intelligence, as measured by the gold standard of IQ tests --- the Wechsler.  See?  There's my psychologist/book sense!)

I don't actually know of any single over-arching studies or reviews of studies that statistically Prove Definitively that Happy ---> Increased Retaining of Intellectual Functioning with Aging.  But Tons of tangential research results support that theory (mood and life expectancy, mood and general health, impact of stress --- with or without social support, etc.) and if you take them all together and add some "common sense" --- Voila!  A Definitively "Proven" Theory!!  (at least in my book --)

Thanks to everyone who is saying Thanks to everyone !

Yes, calling me cab is fine ( And it's a lot nicer compared to what some people have called me over the years ).  

In regards to your previous point Motherinlaw, I find that it is very nice when people take the time to leave a post in one of my threads. After all if nobody leaves any posts it gets quite dull in a hurry. 

It's supposed to help preventdementia from becoming inevitable.

Thanks for the post Conflagration_Planet.

I'm not sure if it possible to prevent any metal decline from happening but one can try to keep the mind working into old age. Doctors tell us that as we age our brain will shrink in size and yet we have all met people who are quite old but they are as sharp as a person half their age. Hope lies in the theory that keeping mentally active is useful to the brain ( Crossword Puzzles anyone ? ).  

As we age, I suppose we will be using an impaired brain to make judgements about whether our brain is impaired. It's much easier to detect a decline in more strictly physical abilties. I was going to point out, I can no longer dunk a basketball but forgot, I never could. Must be my impaired brain.

At least, I remembered that I forgot.

Thanks for the post MyCowsCanFly.

I did have a bit of a senior moment the other day at the local supermarket. They had run my pile of goodies thru the Till and I was going to use my debit- card to pay. A few months ago they got a new machine to process the debit-card transactions but I had used this new system before. However the other day I just could not get this system to work and it would time out and then reject my card. At last I got it right on the third time that we tried it but I felt like a real Dummy. 

Here's a fun theory:  as we experience more "brain slippage," it breaks up old, rigid, over-learned thinking patterns --- the ones in which 'X" Always triggers "Y."

 So the new "gift" of this neurological shift may very well be that Now, "X" may trigger "Mmm" instead!  (and we all know how much fun "Mmm" can be...)