Brain Awareness Week is a global campaign to foster public enthusiasm and support for brain science. Every March communities host imaginative activities that share the wonders of the brain, and the impact brain science has on our everyday lives. The week is also an opportunity to share key messages of prevention and practical ways people can look after their brain health.
This Brain Health Awareness Week, Alzheimer Scotland and Brain Health Scotland are shining a light on how important it is to support children’s brain health. It’s never too early to start building habits that protect and nurture our brains for life.
Have a look at the innovative early years programme with a focus on primary school aged children and their parents. Brain Health Scotland’s “STARS: My Amazing Brain” uses animations and activities to help children imagine their brain as being full of stars and learn what health habits will keep their stars shining.
To find our out more why not download the STARS “Handbook on Children’s Brain Health” or share the resource with local schools.
Allied health professionals have an important role in supporting brain health, supporting people to eat well, take part in physical exercise, offer ideas on how to improve sleep, support people to engage in mindfulness and support people to try something new. In our interactive website we have called our contribution to brain health “Lifestyle Matters”.
Lifestyle matters and making tiny adjustments and embedding health promoting activities into routines can make a huge difference. This includes taking steps to eat and sleep well, taking time to connect with friends and family, challenging ourselves to learn new things and building in some physical activity throughout the day. Examples and ways of doing this can be found across our website at Connecting People Connecting Support on line and this theme offers a short introduction that will hopefully help you to begin to think about small changes you can make to keep well by taking steps to maintain good brain health.
Allied health professionals have also been supporting the week by leading workshops with primary aged children using the resources that you can find here. You can see a previous blog by Sarah Jane Donald. Specialist Occupational Therapist, NHS Lanarkshire called Raising Awareness with children about “My Amazing Brain”. The role of an occupational therapist. You can read the blog here
Last year Karen MacKenzie, Speech and Language Therapist led an AHPDementia webinar on the role of speech and language therapy to support brain health across the lifespan that you can see again here
During the week there are many amazing and innovative taking place, so why not follow #BrainAwarenessWeek and @Brainhealthscot. During the week why not take the brain health brain quiz or or sign up for Brain Health Scotland’s newsletter
have a great week and thank you for reading this blog.