Want to boost your IQ by 10 points?

• Author: Wiesner, Pat
• Position: FROM just over the HILL - Intelligence quotient - Duolingo - Column

WHEN FRIENDS IN MY AGE BRACKET GET together, the conversation usually begins with a discussion of, "What ails you and what are you doing about it?" Some call it an "organ recital." Everyone gets five or 10 minutes to bring the rest up to date. More than a few lame jokes are made about what one or the other can or cannot remember. Then somebody will mention someone who can't remember anything, and the group moves on to other topics.

But beneath the jibes and jokes there is a real concern about what our future might be and how to avoid problems of aging and loss of mental acuity while we are experiencing minor effects of getting older and not knowing what might be the future.

At age 65, one in 10 people will have Alzheimer's disease or dementia. By age 85, more than 30 percent will have developed the disease. The Alzheimer's Association believes a healthy diet and exercise along with maintaining social connections and intellectual activity will help reduce the effects of the disease.

So recently I was having a conversation with my wife and bragging to her that an app that I had been using for the past two months had made my 10 go up 10 points since I started it. Of course, that started quite a conversation. What was it7 How did it work? How much was it? How could I make a statement like that? Impossible!

Well I didn't mean it literally. What I meant was that this app energized me like no other I had ever tried. It pushed me to learn something new, but in a way so that I couldn't get enough of it. I was using it whenever I had a few minutes. In the morning before starting the day, in the evening instead of the TV and in various places during the day, like while waiting in the dentist's...