Forgetting is not necessarily a symptom of dementia; it can also be the result of a tired mind overloaded with information. That’s why we all need mental activities that stimulate us and help maintain our cognitive abilities, such as memory, thinking, and speech.

A great solution is cognitive training, which aims to activate cognitive functions and support different parts of the brain. This training involves developing memory and other skills, such as attention, thinking, planning, organization, judgment, and problem-solving. The exercises target areas of the brain that are not sufficiently active in everyday routines, helping keep the brain in good condition and serving as a preventive measure against memory decline due to aging or illness. For seniors, this training is not only a useful way to spend time but also an effective tool for improving memory and protecting against dementia.

Examples of activities:

1. Come up with as many adjectives as possible to describe a given object or person:
   • book, bench, doctor, bread, wall…
     (This game can also be played in pairs: one person gives nouns, the other adjectives.)
2. Create a short story using all the given words:
   • banana, dog, flower, vacation, chair
   • window, squirrel, necklace, washing machine, neighbor
     (The type of story can be specified, e.g., funny, action, sad, or it can be a group activity with randomly drawn words.)
3. Sudoku – A logic game played on a 9×9 grid, divided into nine 3×3 subgrids. The goal is to fill in the empty squares with numbers 1–9 so that each row, column, and 3×3 subgrid contains every number exactly once. Sudoku does not require math skills but rather careful thinking and strategic planning.
4. Spot the differences – A great activity to train attention, concentration, persistence, visual discrimination, memory, and more. There are various levels of difficulty and numbers of differences to find. The activity can be timed or untimed.
5. Write 3 words starting with the letter S for each category:
   • name, city, animal, object
     (You can change the letter or create different categories such as sports, plants, food, professions, book titles, etc.)
6. Find and match identical images – An activity similar to memory/pairs games. The goal is to find and match identical pairs of images.
7. Create meaningful words from scrambled letters:
   • Č A K A K → duck
   • S K E R O L → chair
   • I E K V E R V Č A → squirrel