پریسا پورمرادکهن

Introduction and Cognitive impairment is one of the most common problems in the elderly that a very wide range of old age disorders are allocated to it and paying attention to them can lead to well-being in old age. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of brain gym on cognitive abilities of the elderly. This research is a quasi-experimental study with pretest-post control group design. Statistical population of this research includes all inactive elderly people who live in Kermanshah. Sampling Method of this study is convenience sampling. For this purpose, according to inclusion and exclusion criteria, 30 elderly people with mean age 65.36 years were selected and randomly divided into two groups of 15. The empirical group performed brain gym exercises, which have been exclusively designed to improve cognitive abilities, eight 30-minutes sessions. The Cognitive Ability Questionnaire (Nejati, 1392) was used to assess the participants' cognitive ability in the pre-test and post-test. ANCOVA analysis was used for data analysis. The results of the study showed that there was a significant difference between the cognitive scores of the two experimental and control groups by controlling the pre-test score. The empirical group scores significantly improved in cognitive abilities (P<0/05). The findings of this study confirm the positive effect of brain gym exercises on cognitive abilities in the elderly. Brain gym has likely its effects through two mechanisms:first through the effects such as physical exercise effects, and second through the direct effect on the brain that causes neural reorganization and cognitive abilities.

Given the significance of balance in maintaining body posture and exercising complex sports skills, the aim of this study was to investigate the impact of brain gym on static and dynamic balance of non-athlete female students. To this end, 24 non-athlete female students from University of Kharazmi voluntarily participated in this study, and were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group performed brain gym exercises, which were specifically designed to improve their body balance, for 8 sessions of 30 minutes each. The control group underwent a series of flexibility and stretching exercises, deemed not to impact their balance. The number of sessions and the time devoted to each session was the same as the treatment the experimental group went through. In order to measure the static and dynamic balance of the participants in the pre- and post-test, the Stork and Star tests were administered. ANCOVA was used to analyze the data. The results indicated that controlling the pre-test scores, there was a statistically significant difference in the static and dynamic balance between the control and the experimental groups, suggesting that brain gym has a positive impact on static and dynamic balance. It then follows that due to the ease of implementation of brain gym exercises, coaches and physical education teachers can use brain gym in order to improve balance in their students.

The present study aimed at investigating the effect of mental kinestick imagery on athletic confidence. The population of this quasi-experimental study comprised the whole amateur basketball players. Available sampling was used as the instrument, such that 30 physical education students from Islamic Azad University of Kermanshah volunteered to participate in this study. They were classified into two groups of kinestick imagery and control, using matching scores method in Revised Hall and Martin’s (1997) questionnaire. Further, Willie and Knight’s (2002) scale of athletic confidence was used to measure participants’ athletic confidence in pre- and post-test. The experimental group did six sessions of thirty-minute kinestick imagery exercise and pay lay-up shot, while the control group only pay lay-up shot. With controlling the pre-test scores, The results indicated a statistically significant difference between the two groups in post test of athletic confidence scores. The implication of this study is the impact that mental mental kinestick imagery has on improving athletic confidence in athletes.

Self-esteem is an important aspect consistent in all stages of life that plays a role in emotional, social and psychological compliance. And this issue is more important at the time of old age, particularly in mental health. So, The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of brain gym exercises on Self- esteem in elderly.The following papers are an empirical study and the study sample included all elderly people in the Elderly Nursing Homes in Sari city. The sampling method of this research it was the kind of available. For this purpose, 30 people in their elderly were selected and randomly divided into two groups of 15, according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. The empirical group performed brain gym exercises, which have been exclusively designed to improve Self- esteem, in 8 sessions of 30 minutes. In order to measure self-esteem of participants in the pre-test and post-test was used from Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale. Covariance test was used to analyze the data. Concludingly, it was demonstrated that by controlling the pretest scores, there is a significant difference between Self-esteem of the control and empirical group. The findings of this survey confirmed the effectiveness brain exercise on cognitive factors such as self-esteem in the elderly.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of sensory modalities of mental imagery on learning lay-up shot in basketball. Accordingly, 40 female students (mean age: 23 ± 2.5 years) voluntarily participated in this study and completed the Movement Imagery Questionnaire-Revised in order to determine their imagery ability. After preliminary instructions, a pretest of 10 trails was performed and then participants were assigned to four groups, including visual imagery, kinesthetic imagery, auditory imagery, and control group according to pretest scores. The acquisition phase included six sessions. Forty-eight hours after the acquisition test, retention and transfer tests were conducted. Mixed analysis of variance with repeated measures on test factor showed that group and test main effects and the interaction of two variables were significant. Findings of one-way ANOVA and repeated measures ANOVA as post-hoc tests for interaction effect revealed that imagery groups had significantly better performance in acquisition, retention and transfer tests compared to control group, although there was no significant difference among three experimental groups. In addition, groups showed significant progress in acquisition and retention test compared to pretest. These findings suggest that sport coaches and teachers can facilitate basketball lay-up shot learning using visual, auditory and kinesthetic imagery modalities.

Given the recent controversies about the specific functions of the hemisphere, The aim of this study was to investigate of relationship between student visual-spatial memory with critical thinking disposition and attitude toward creativity Given the preference hemisphere. The method of this study was Causal-comparative. The subjects, included all of the shahid Rajaee University students who were enrolled in 94-95. The study sample consisted of 100 students of the shahed rajaee university were selected For available and were screened By using a Zenhausern preference Hemisphere Scale. to collect data used Corsi Blocks Tapping, Ricketts questionnaire of critical thinking disposition and creativity attitude system. To analyze the data was used z-test to determine the significance of differences between two independent samples and Pearson correlation coefficient. The results showed that the relationship between visual-spatial memory and critical thinking disposition in students with preference right Hemisphere most of the students thay have a preference the left hemisphere. It also became clear that the relationship between visual-spatial memory and creativity attitude system was not different in students has the right and left hemisphere preference. These findings could confirm recent theories of integration of the hemispheres of the brain In some mental abilities, such as creativity.

Falling down or even collapse is one of the most serious, as well as prevalent, difficulties people in their elderly face. Falling is related to decline in activities in basic life and also to those which are instrumental in daily life. Falling and the subsequent injuries are determinant factors of performance decline in elderly denizens of the society. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of brain gym exercises on static and dynamic balance of those in elderly who do not have any regular physical activity. The following papers are an empirical study in which the sampling was the available ilk. For this purpose, 30 people in their elderly were selected and randomly divided into two groups of 15, according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. The empirical group performed brain gym exercises, which have been exclusively designed to improve body balance, in 8 sessions of 30 minutes. Stork and timed stand-up-and-down tests were utilized in order to measure static and dynamic balance of participants in both pre- and post-tests respectively. Moreover, Covariance test was used to analyze the data. Concludingly, it was demonstrated that by controlling the pre-test scores, there is a significant difference between static and dynamic balance of the control and empirical group. The findings of this study are indicative of the brain gym exercise influence on motor factors associated with falling and, concomitantly, on those with possible prevention of falling in the elderly.