Wellness programs have become increasingly valuable as both insurers and employers look for ways to enable individuals to improve their health and take control of their health expenses. Typically, these programs focus on physical health. However, long-term care insurance provider Penn Treaty American Corporation saw the benefit–particularly in its line of business–of including mental health fitness when the carrier began to develop its own wellness initiative.

"More than 20 percent of the population over the age of 75 has some level of mild cognitive impairment," says Stephen LaPierre, executive vice president of Penn Treaty. "Also, claims related to Alzheimer's disease and dementia are among the most costly in the long-term care insurance industry in terms of both number and cost. Therefore, anything we can do as an industry to improve the cognitive health of our policyholders is a win-win."

In November, Penn Treaty began offering the Brain Fitness Program from Posit Science to its policyholders, becoming the first long-term care insurance provider to do so. The Brain Fitness Program is a computer-based series of "mental exercises" that require users to perform increasingly complicated series of tasks designed to help improve memory, strengthen communication, and sharpen thinking skills, with the ultimate goal of delaying the onset of dementia and Alzheimer's disease.

"The program is different than working on crossword puzzles, sudoku, or other games," LaPierre explains. "Puzzles do keep your brain active, but they don't directly exercise the speed and accuracy of information processing by your brain that can decline with age. Brain Fitness targets the underlying neuromodular systems of cognitive function."

According to studies performed by Posit Science, participants using the Brain Fitness Program showed statistically and clinically significant gains on standard cognitive batteries, while participants in control groups showed minimal or no gains. The gains are equivalent to 10 or more years of improved cognitive function, such as the ability to remember and with faster processing speed, among populations over age 60.

The first phase of the program Penn Treaty will offer is auditory. Policyholders requesting to participate in the program will be sent software and a set of PC headphones. The carrier projects as many as 60,000 policyholders ultimately may access the program.

Despite being computer based, LaPierre claims the program is not difficult for seniors to use. "My mother, who is 80, tested the program before we decided to begin offering it. It's very easy and intuitive," LaPierre reports. "It's designed to be used for an hour a day, five days a week, for a total of 40 hours of mental exercises."

The next phase, which Penn Treaty hopes to roll out next year, will be a Web-based program geared toward visual stimulation. Penn Treaty is working to set up computer access at senior centers, retirement communities, and other facilities in areas where the carrier has large concentrations of policyholders without PCs or Internet access.

The Brain Fitness Program is just one part of Penn Treaty's "Wellness Privileges Program," which the carrier began developing last year. The program currently provides online resources and enables policyholders to obtain emergency response service and disease screening, and it will soon offer lifestyle coaching.

"We have a long-term relationship with our policyholders. We felt we needed to do more to add to that relationship," LaPierre explains.

Penn Treaty is developing ways to assess the impact of the Brain Fitness Program. "We have worked with our actuaries to develop the criteria to evaluate the efficacy of the program, such as measuring the incidence rates for dementia claims, the average duration of time between policy issue and first report of claim, and the duration of dementia claims historically vs. the future duration after we roll out the program," LaPierre reports. "There's a number of different things we'll look at, and we are being conservative in our initial expectations, but the potential upside is tremendous."

Equally important to the potential impact on Penn Treaty's bottom line is the anticipated benefit to policyholders. "Nobody wants to suffer from dementia," says LaPierre. "All our wellness programs, including the Brain Fitness Program, are designed to allow people to enjoy more healthy years of life." TD

Special Reports /

Brain Fitness

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