The exercises available at the BrainWaves Center site are "intriguing challenges formatted as puzzles", which "are designed to help develop mental skills in two ways". The first way is to "build mental stamina for sustained concentration, much as aerobics builds physical stamina for sustained exertion". Many seniors overlook the fact that working out the brain is as important as working out their bodies, to ensure peak mental and physical fitness. The BrainWaves homepage also points out that "[t]he ability to focus attention is an essential first step for conscious memory". The second way of developing mental skills is achieved when "the exercises introduce, in an entertaining format, so many different kinds of data - math, verbal, spatial, logic, etc. - that some of it is bound to be new to you. That new data - and more important, the experience you gain in how to organize data so you can locate a solution - will build links among your brain cells that, later, can help you learn new data and spot the most effective pattern to cope with it".

These are lofty goals indeed. If their beliefs are correct, and the BrainWaves techniques do what they claim, then it appears you can teach an old dog new tricks after all. The best case is a better brain. But even if your brain does not undergo a quantum leap in new connections, the activities on this website are still a very fun way to spend time on the Internet, so there really is no downside here.