As people age they worry about keeping their mind healthy, but they don’t think about it needing a workout. Your brain needs to stay active. Just like you do a cardio workout for your heart or do some light weight lifting to keep up your strength and endurance, the mind needs a good workout too.

Often, memory loss and loss of mental acuity associated with aging is not a natural part of aging at all. It’s simply a result of not staying mentally active. It can also be from a poor diet and not getting the right kind of nutrition. Your brain needs to be fed with nutrients, oxygen and water. It also needs to be fed with puzzles and thinking activities.

To keep your mind active and healthy, here are some ways you can challenge it.

It can be really easy to keep your mind busy and do some fun activities that keep it performing properly. Doing some kind of physical activity not only challenges your muscles, but the extra oxygen you’re taking in is good for the mind. Not to mention keeping you coordinated. Your brain is at work trying to help you stay coordinated and balanced. It’s not just a physical thing, it’s a mental thing too.

Playing mind games and learning new skills are excellent ways to give your mind a boost. It may feel tiring at first, especially if you haven’t been doing any kind of mental work, but with some practice, your brain will actually start craving the stimulation.

• Hang out with friends. Socializing is not only enjoyable, it’s a mental activity. As we get older, we sometimes lose connections with family and friends. Now you have one more reason to meet with them ñ to keep your mind active. If they aren’t able to meet with you, look for a group or club you can join for some social interaction. Experts recommend engaging in social activities at least once a week, possibly more. Many of these groups have bingo night. Games like this allows social interaction with friends but it’s also great for your mind.

• Get moving! Exercise is a great way to challenge your brain. Getting active with things like Pilates and Yoga are gentle on the body but they also require a great degree of mental focus. Exercise your brain while you move your body. Going for a walk or taking a low-impact aerobics class is also a great brain workout. Yoga also helps quiet the mind. That may sound like the opposite of what we’re talking about, but getting rid of mental clutter is good for your brain. It helps it focus on important stuff.

• Enjoy games. Crosswords puzzles, Sudoku, checkers or chess can challenge your mind too. These mind games force you to look at things from different perspectives, which is a brain-building activity. If you can’t find anyone to play with, most of these are available as computer software. Some you can get for free, while others will cost you a few bucks.

• Get a hobby. Engaging in a hobby you enjoy can also keep the mind sharp. It might be gardening, woodworking, or even writing your memoirs. The important thing is that you do it. You will have fun and also keep your mind healthy. If you can’t decide what you’d like to do, just visit a craft and hobby store. There are tons of things available. Paint by number is still very popular, easy to do and is great mind work.

• Do some scrapbooking. Not only does scrapbooking challenge your mind to think creatively, it reinforces those memory skills. It will also keep your interest and train your brain to focus on an activity for a length of time. It may seem silly, but scrapbooking is like adult kindergarten. It’s a ton of fun gluing shapes and textures onto a thick sheet of paper. You can add family photos and all kinds of stuff.

An important part of your overall health and fitness is taking care of your mental health. By challenging your brain with some of the above ideas, you will keep your mind active and this will also keep depression from setting in. Depression is not always an age related problem, but those who suffer from depression are often couch potatoes. Instead of engaging their minds, they stare at a television set that does nothing to stimulate their mental functions. Remember, an active mind is a healthy mind.

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Elder financial abuse generally occurs when a caregiver, family member or friend obtains property (real or personal) that once belonged to the elder. The manner in which these properties were obtained usually involves undue influence.

“Undue influence” has been defined by a myriad of statutes and case law, and varies somewhat among the states. In California, for example, undue influence is generally used in two contexts: (1) making a contract or conveyance, and (2) applying certain common law presumptions (See: Elder Law Litigation: Remedies for Financial Abuse, Continuing Education of the Bar/2005).

California Civil Code Section 1575 describes undue influence in contract and conveyance cases:

“The use, by one in whom a confidence is reposed by another, or who holds a real or apparent authority over him or her, of such confidence or authority for the purpose of obtaining an unfair advantage over him or her;

Taking an unfair advantage of another’s weaker state of mind; or

Taking a grossly oppressive and unfair advantage of another’s necessities or distress.”

The common law, and Civil Code section 1575, discuss presumptions of undue influence that exist, primarily when a fiduciary or confidential relationship occur between an elder and the alleged perpetrator. Undue influence results when the perpetrator participates in obtaining an undue profit or unfair advantage over the elder.

What this presumption means is that the burden of proof is shifted to the defendant to prove the nonexistence of the presumed undue influence or fraud (See: Continuing Education of the Bar, supra).

The special relationship involves questions of fact and depends on the circumstances of each case. Such a relationship can be established by the close proximity of the perpetrator to the elderly victim. Caregivers, nurses, friends or relatives can all, potentially, be so involved in the elder’s life that a special relationship exists to trigger the presumption that undue influence occurred.

Another factor in determining whether undue influence occurred, it is a determination as to the adequacy of consideration that was given to the elder by the defendant. In making such a determination, the Court will consider the degree of isolation, failing health, and mental capacity of the elder and what benefit, if any, the defendant provided to the elder.

One more factor is whether or not the elder obtained independent legal advice before completing the conveyance of real or personal property. In most cases of elder financial abuse, the perpetrator did not take steps to have the transaction reviewed by an attorney.

One of these factors, by themselves, is probably insufficient to show that the elder was subjected to undue influence and that the conveyance of real or personal property should be undone. However, a combination of these factors can be enough to prove undue influence and to convince the court that the transaction, conveyance or contract should be rescinded and the property returned to the elder.

Many remedies exist when undue influence has been used to wrongfully obtain property. California’s Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act provides nearly every remedy under the sun, and a civil action can request that the defendant be liable for attorney fees, costs, and punitive damages, as well as all special and general damages.

George F. Dickerman is an elder law attorney in Riverside County, California, practising law for 23 years. To learn more about elder law issues, and to subscribe to a free newsletter that provides valuable information on how to assist your family members or loved ones, please visit
Elder Law Advocate.

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A 2005 study conducted for King County, Washington (that’s Seattle) discovered that “residents walk more in neighborhoods that provide a wide variety of retail services and where connections to such services are facilitated through a connected street network.”

New York Magazine reported that a 2002 study by the National Institutes of Health “found that people living in buildings built before 1973 were significantly more likely to walk one-mile distances than those living in areas with new architecture – because their environments were less architecturally ugly.”  What?

Proximity to parks and prettier buildings actually encourages people to walk more? That’s interesting – a potential win-win-win, because medical research has proven that walking just 30 minutes a day improves your overall health. So what can we do to improve the “walkability” of our communities?

That vision is central to the two-decade-old architectural and city planning movement called “new urbanism.”  The main new urbanist group defines their goals as follows:

“We advocate the restructuring of public policy and development practices to support the following principles: neighborhoods should be diverse in use and population; communities should be designed for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car; cities and towns should be shaped by physically defined and universally accessible public spaces and community institutions; urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape design that celebrate local history, climate, ecology, and building practice.”

And new urbanists are active in lots of communities across the country – from the redevelopment in New Orleans to towns they’ve built from scratch such as Seaside, Florida, and Laguna West-Lakeside, south of Sacramento. If you are active in your own community and interested in city planning, it’s worth checking out how new urbanists think about development.

But even if you’re only curious about whether your own neighborhood is one that supports walking, or you’re thinking of renting or buying in a new neighborhood, I recently discovered a very cool new internet tool, Walkscore.com, that might help you make your decision.  You simply type in your address and the tool gives the address a walk score on a scale from 0 to 100. The score calibrates the closeness of a particular site to the following amenities:

Grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, bars, movie theaters, schools, parks, libraries, bookstores, fitness facilities, drug stores, hardware stores and clothing stores. The closer you are to each of these, the higher the score.