Abstract:
Research is now starting to unveil the importance of the brain and the role of cognitive health towards overall health and wellbeing of an individual. Traditionally, the focus has been on maintaining physical health as a way to improve wellbeing. This can be witnessed through increased interest in physical activity, adoption of fitness and health trackers, eating a healthy diet and getting regular health check-ups. In terms of cognitive health, there is not much robust evidence supporting how and why people look after their cognitive health as a way to improve their wellbeing. Even though many tools and activities are now available to improve cognitive health, there is lack of evidence to show how people adopt and engage with these in their daily lives. Thus, two research questions were developed to further explore this area: (1) What is cognitive health and how can it be improved? (2) How and why do people engage in activities (explicit and implicit) aimed at optimising cognitive health? Research question one was answered through a thorough review of the literature. The second research question was addressed by engaging with participants through empathy interviews and observations. Following a detailed analysis of the raw data, several key findings were identified. Cognitive health is not a common term used amongst people, it is rather referred to as brain or mental health, and broken down into various domains such as memory, reaction time, speed of information processing and the ability to think. Memory was the most common and discussed topic amongst all for various reasons. These ranged from maintaining a good quality of life, feeling independent, maintaining strong familial connections, academic success as well as employment performance. Participants also showed a lack of awareness in terms of what kind of activities were good for their brain health but engaged in activities that were part of their daily living such as physical exercise, social interaction, working, studying, reading, social interaction and management of stress. Furthermore, there was a strong sense of curiosity, keenness and openness to learn and understand more about this area of health, which was also emphasised through engagement with the BrainCheck assessment. This study has identified four key opportunity areas in order to improve cognitive health; these were: food and nutrition, cognitive health training, cognitive health assessment and educational awareness.