UI seeks participants for study on brain exercise for seniors
By Christine Des Garennes
Monday September 8, 2008
John Dixon
Senior Odyssey coach Lindsey Burt plays a board game with participants, from left, Doris Ford, Steve Palmer, Vince Ventura and Kay Stauffer at Lincoln Square Village in Urbana last week.
A little more than a year ago, 70-year-old Eileen Bunting looked across the street and saw a fire hydrant.
Except when she saw the hydrant, she couldn't remember what it was called. It took her several days to recall the words, fire hydrant.
As you get older, she said, sometimes it takes a while to recall or spell words.
"Now I seem to have less trouble bringing words to my mind. Now when I forget the title for a word, I let my mind relax. I think it out and it comes," said the Mahomet resident.
As a research participant in the University of Illinois' Senior Odyssey project, Bunting spent several weeks in the spring playing word and number games. And with a team of other seniors, she figured out solutions to challenges, such as how to wrap several items with a limited amount of paper and Scotch tape within a time limit.
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