Today we are fortunate to interview Dr. Jerri Edwards, an Associate Professor at University of South Florida's School of Aging Studies and Co-Investigator of the influencial ACTIVE study. Dr. Edwards was trained by Dr. Karlene K. Ball, and her research is aimed toward discovering how cognitive abilities can be maintained and even enhanced with advancing age.

Alvaro Fernandez (AF): Please explain to our readers your main research areas.

Jerri Edwards (JE): I am particularly interested in how cognitive interventions may help older adults to avoid or at least delay functional difficulties and thereby maintain their independence longer. Much of my work has focused on the functional ability of driving including assessing driving fitness among older adults and remediation of cognitive decline that results in driving difficulties.

Some research questions that interest me include, how can we maintain healthier lives longer? How can training improve cognitive abilities, both to improve those abilities and also to slow-down, or delay, cognitive decline? The specific cognitive ability that I have studied the most is processing speed, which is one of the cognitive skills that decline early on as we age.

AF: Can you explain what cognitive processing speed is, and why it is relevant to our daily lives?

JE: Processing speed is mental quickness. Just like a computer with a 486 processor can do a lot of the same things as a computer with a Pentium 4 processor, but it takes much longer, our minds tend to slow down with age as compared to when we were younger. We can do the same tasks, but it takes more time. Quick speed of processing is important for quick decision making in our daily lives. When you are driving, if something unexpected happens, how quickly can you notice the situation and decide how to react?

AF: Please describe how the ACTIVE trial used the cognitive training program, and what the results were found to be when they were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in December 2006?

JE: I was a co-investigator of the ACTIVE study, a multi-site, controlled study, with thousands of adults over sixty-five, to evaluate the effectiveness of three different cognitive training methods with three different groups:

- The first group used a memory training program including a variety of traditional memory techniques such as mnemonics and the method of loci.

- The second group was trained in learn inductive reasoning skills.

- The third group was exposed to computer-based programs to train processing speed.

All 3 groups spent the same amount of time in their respective training programs, around 2 hours a week for 5 weeks, going through exercises of increasing difficulty. The ACTIVE study was designed to track participants' performance over a number of years, so, after this initial 5-week intervention, some groups received training booster sessions, after 1 year and again after 3 years.

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