Canadians who find themselves increasingly forgetful might just need to exercise their brains, according to two new studies.

In one research experiment conducted by a team of Toronto psychologists, they developed a system to slow the normal deterioration of the mind associated with the normal process of aging.

"Cognitive impairment is one of this country's serious health problems," Dr. Gordon Winocour, of Toronto's Baycrest Research Centre for Aging and the Brain, told CTV News.

Everyone experiences some degree of memory loss and cognitive decline as they get older. The deterioration usually becomes noticeable past the age of 50, when Canadians may find it slightly more difficult to focus on tasks, organize errands and remember how to do things in the right order.

Researchers call these skills "strategic abilities" or "executive functions," tied to the brain's frontal lobes.

Psychologists at Baycrest created a strategy of cognitive rehabilitation, to help people retain these abilities. Their research can be found in the January 2007 issue of the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.

"Our primary emphasis was on improving the use of general strategic abilities because they are particularly vulnerable to the aging process," Dr. Donald Stuss, coordinator of the study and director of the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest, said in a press release.

The team examined 49 healthy older adults with normal cognitive decline. All of the participants were between the ages of 71 and 87. Over the course of 12 weeks, psychologists taught them methods to improve their strategic abilities.

Afterwards, researchers saw a 15 to 40 per cent improvement in the memories of all participants.

"Over a period of six months their improvement not only maintained, it increased," said Wincour.

The 12-week course was broken up into three four-week sections, focusing on a different skill involved in strategic abilities: memory, goal management and psychosocial function.

The memory training emphasized how to retain and recover information, while goal management focused on methods to lower the chance of memory slips, like forgetting to take out the garbage. Psychosocial training was aimed at boosting the participants' confidence in their mental abilities.

"We wanted to devise a cognitive rehabilitation program that would produce improvement over a relatively short period of time, so participants could build on that while they're still functional and slow down the rate of decline," said Dr. Gordon Winocur, co-coordinator of the study and a senior scientist at Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute.

"If we can work with people in the early stages of cognitive decline, then we can slow down the rate of this decline and help them maintain a higher level of function for a longer period of time."

Meanwhile, in another study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), researchers developed another strategy for fighting against mental deterioration.

Unlike the Baycrest study, researchers focused on participants' difficulty in performing "instrumental activities of daily living" (IADL), that also require cognitive skills like memory.

Researchers called their system ACTIVE, an acronym for Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly. They studied 2,802 participants and followed up on their progress over five years, and found positive results.

The study is called "Long-term Effects of Cognitive Training on Everyday Functional Outcomes in Older Adults," and can be found here.

And you can find the guidelines for the Baycrest program here.

Both studies indicate the people can exercise their brains just like their bodies, and that regular training can help slow mental deterioration, and even improve cognitive skills.

With a report by CTV's medical specialists, Avis Favaro and Elizabeth St. Philip