games, fun and fitness

Kinect-ion mania. This was an interesting week -- aside from the  mid-term elections, which were as riveting a score-keeping experience as I've watched since the days before the 2004 World Series. But immediately after the election came the arrival and quick store departure of Microsoft's Kinect sensor units: the Target near my home sold out in one (brief) day.  After reading the various near-rhapsodic reviews in the NY Times -- and this June's hopeful speculation about boomer-senior Kinect benefits from the Senior Director, Worldwide Health at Microsoft -- you have to wonder. Says Dr. Crounse: "How about home physical therapy or medical rehabilitation with expert avatars or live health professionals guiding me?  What about supervised exercise programs for weight control?  How about applications for people with cognitive disorders or neuromuscular challenges?"  Yes -- how about all of that?

I am exhausted thinking about my later years. So many studies -- it makes you breathless -- show a correlation between reduced incidence of dementia and certain behaviors. Do people who remain sharp choose these activities? Or do these activities help people remain sharp? Oops, sorry. Nobody really knows.

But as we anticipate the future, and newspapers capitalize on their and our impossible-to-calm fear of dementia, prepare to hustle.