After ten weeks of Tai Chi classes, the study group showed significant improvements in tests of their memory, language, attention, stress, mood and fatigue.

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They also assessed their physical and neurological health, and carried out tests - including memory, language and abstract reasoning - to evaluate their condition.

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"What we don't know is whether there is something common to musical training that is common to attention, sequencing (processing the order in which something occurred), memory and language skills, " she says.

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Hawkins, who will continue to work as chief technical officer of Treo maker palmOne (nasdaq: PLMO - news - people ), already has his own research lab to study the neocortex, a massive part of the brain thought to hold such higher level functions as language, learning, memory and complex thought.

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Research suggests some connection between low numbers of synapses in a person's brain and Alzheimer's symptoms such as memory impairment and language deterioration.

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Dementia is a loss of brain function and affects memory, thinking, language, judgment and behavior.

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For those whose memory of coaches is language bluer than the seven seas, it might come as a shock that schools are cracking down on cursing.

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The greatest impairment is found in attention, memory, judgment, decision-making, information processing and language skills.

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