Enhancing Cognitive Fitness in Adults: A Guide to the Use and Development of Community-Based Programs is a unique compilation of the efforts of psychologists, neuropsychologists, and related health professionals to improve the lives of aging individuals. Healthy aging, mild cognitive impairment, and dementia all get attention and discussion. This book was designed for the clinician wanting to develop interventions/programs for their patients or local aging community, and it resonates as a “call to arms” to help that is motivating to read. The creativity of these researchers and clinicians on behalf of the rapidly growing geriatric community is inspirational.

This edited book pulls together 27 chapters written by different individuals with, at times, very different styles and intended audiences, as tends to occur in edited compilations. Part I is entitled Research Foundations for Cognitive Wellness Interventions. The book starts well with Chapter 1, Memory Enhancement Strategies: What Works Best for Obtaining Memory Goals (Dunlosky, Bailey, and Hertzog), an excellent piece explaining the desperate want in the aging population for interventions that enhance/maintain their cognitive ability. These authors do a nice job explaining the different types of internal rehabilitation strategies and some of the evidence that assists in evaluating these strategies. In Chapter 4, Lodi-Smith and Park cover Park's conceptualization of how the brain benefits at a neuronal level with their well-conceptualized “Scaffolding Theory” of how areas of the brain are recruited to compensate for areas that are failing. The remaining chapters in Part I present their own interventions which are some of the most scientifically based in the book, ranging from very scientific (Chapter 5 on Meditation) to seemingly written for a lay audience (Chapter 3 on Computer Programs).

The remaining sections of the book are: Part II. Community-Based Programs to Enhance and Sustain Healthy Aging; Part III. Enhancing Cognition Through the Arts; Part IV. Cognitive Wellness Interventions for Adults with Memory Impairment; and, Part V. Gaining Through Giving Back: Programs with a Positive Societal Impact. Essentially, the book continues on the same course as in Chapter 2, presenting various interventions or programs that have been undertaken from computers and computer games to theater and arts to meditation and mindfulness to volunteering and promoting generativity, all posited to enhance cognitive and emotional well-being.

Some chapters about little known programs in the wider neuropsychology/psychology audience have an impressive amount of research background. The two best examples of this are Noice and Noice's Chapter 17, Enhancing Healthy Cognitive Aging Through Theater Art, and Rebok and colleagues’ Chapter. 27, Experience Corps ^®: A Civic Engagement-Based Public Health Intervention in Public Schools. The high caliber of research design and implementation leading to National Institute of Health funding for both groups is laudable and sets a standard for designing and researching behavioral interventions in aging. The Noices’ chapter on theater arts is a dark horse of surprising scientific quality about a creative method of capitalizing on research showing how engagement, activity, socialization, and their methods of enhancing memory strategies to learn one's lines in a script can benefit cognition. Experience Corps^® is a well-funded 15-year program pairing healthy elderly adults in meaningful volunteer activities for children in kindergarten to third grade, in public elementary schools. This work capitalizes on physical, cognitive, and social activity with a synergistic effect on the daily lives of the aging volunteers and serves as a model of a well-run clinical research program.

Many other chapters possess the well-meaning intentions of good clinicians with no empirical support. This is not a difficulty unique to these chapters, but a reflection of the state of the field. One only needs to Google “improving memory” to find many products and services available for the elderly with little to no validation. While far from egregious attempts to make money, and clearly coming from a place of caring and good intention, many of the chapters have no control groups, little to no pre-post measures, and highly biased samples. Many of the chapters would not have found their way into publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Nevertheless, the ideas that they put forth may well lead to subsequent research. Examples of notable creativity include Chapter 9, A Practical Guide to Senior Odyssey (Stine-Morrow and Parisi) in which older adults participate in novel team task competitions normally designed for school aged children (think middle school egg-drop); Chapter 12 about creative writing groups (Hartman-Stein); and Chapter 19 about the Artists for Alzheimer's^® program (ARTZ) to bring art and museum experiences to those with Alzheimer's disease (Caulfield).

The various chapters of this book also remind us that there is much more to enhancing the lives of the aging population than just cognitive fitness. Quality of life, sense of generativity, mood, and social relationships all have important roles to play in making the best of the last third of one's life. Perhaps George discusses this best in Chapter 26, Neurons in Neighborhoods, when he uses the illustration of Sylvia Lovejoy from Kurt Vonnegut's “Fortitude.” In this short story, Sylvia's disembodied head with synthetic brain is kept functioning while all other aspects of her well-being are neglected, particularly her need for community and affection. Depression and tragedy ensue. Another important caution comes from Camp and colleagues in Chapter 23, who eloquently remind us that prevention of dementia cannot be the only strived for outcome. In discussing the “I'm Still Here”™ Montessori based approach for those with Alzheimer's disease, we are reminded that those who are cognitively impaired are not simply treatment failures of cognitive enhancement/rehabilitation strategies, but individuals for whom exercise, nutrition, cognitive engagement, and socialization are just as important.

Enhancing Cognitive Fitness in Adults: A Guide to the Use and Development of Community-Based Programs is an essential read for those interested in setting up interventions for combating cognitive decline in the elderly. While not all techniques are empirically validated to date, there is a wealth of experience and creativity in these chapters that will only help to sharpen the ideas one may have for his/her own clinic, evening course for the community, or research program.