Have you noticed this new thing that's happening in the television commercial world - the catering to boomer's fear of loosing their minds. My husband and I watch Discovery channel's Cash Cab in the afternoon while I prepare our various foods. The demographics must be aging males, because there are car commercials as well as daily commercials for a new brain game from Nintendo, called Brain Age.

Nintendo Brain-Training Game A Hit

Older Adults In Japan Use Electronic Game To Sharpen Thinking

To cater to older consumers, the Nintendo DS is user-friendly. There is no complicated set of controls — just a pen and touch pad —

and players can turn the console sideways to make it feel more familiar, like a book.

Nintendo's strategy seems to have worked. Some hospitals have even started putting Nintendo DS units in waiting rooms and wards for patients.

Doctors at the hospital even recommend elderly people purchase the console to stimulate their brains regularly at home and watch patients playing the game as an informal method of diagnosis, Uchida said.

"The game won't cure dementia. But it's a good form of stimulation," said Dr. Takeshi Kihara, a neuropsychiatrist at the clinic.

Nintendo now hopes to bring its winning formula overseas with "Brain Age," an English-language version of the brain training game.

What I find offensive and appalling is Nintendo is capitalizing on our fears. As I write this I see how silly I'm being. Of course, Nintendo is in the market to make money however they can, the fact that I'm insecure about forgetting to pay the gas bill or can't remember my neighbor's name, is probably not on their top ten list of concerns. I would like to think they are humanitarians, and perhaps they are in other ways which I don't know about, but I just don't get the sense they are. After all, they created the Mario Brothers, which is not exactly a pin the tail on the donkey kind of game.

I'm rambling, and not too sure why I'm nailing poor Nintendo. They made the Wii the kids gave me for my birthday and I love it - plus it's good for my hand eye coordination and brains, and I have no problem with it. It's just this "Brain Age, train your brain in just minutes a day" game that bothers me. Maybe if I think about if long enough I can train my brain to figure out why it's so upset by the commercial, or more likely, I'll forget about the whole thing by morning.