ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS
Michelle reminded us that we will be having our major fundraiser April 26th. It will be a roast of John Laird. It should be very entertaining.
February 14th will be the speech contest for high school seniors in the area. Save the date! Doug will send around a sign-up sheet to assist.
There will be a meeting of the club foundation on Jan 31st at 11:00. That same day there will also be a meting of the community grant committee at 10:00 AM. All are welcome to come.
Wed Feb 20th from 4:00 to 7:00 will be Aptos area Chamber of Commerce Business Showcase. We will have a booth there. You can sign up to help with Doug Deaver.
Our speaker today was Nima Jafarian. He is the co-founder of ACI research labs. He has over 10 years of experience in R and D and multiple graduate degrees. He spoke today about a new method of cognitive assessment that he has developed recently that can be accessed by your cell phone.
He spoke about memory which is the ability to store memories (storage) and focus (attention). The five factors that affect attention are sleep, mood, stress, controlled substances and nutrition,(possibly vitamin b12). In the past assessment needed to be done by a doctor utilizing an assessment tool. You also need a subjective health assessment. If damage is apparent you will go to a neuropsychologist. In addition, you then need MRI and PET SCAN or lumbar puncture.
We need people in studies far earlier than when people are diagnosed. So how do you find out sooner? Cognitive monitoring. Establish a baseline first, then do non-subjective data collection. So Mr. Jafarian has developed a cognitive assessment app that can be used on your cellphone. It is in the form of a game. It only takes 3 minutes using your phone. You can infer from the game (that tracks change over time in your scores) if cognitive damage has occurred or is occurring. It should be on the market soon. Watch for it!