From 34 to 79: What Constant Therapy Actually Did to My Brain

Showing up every day — even for just a few minutes — turns out to matter more than I expected.

When Your Brain Doesn't Quite Cooperate

There's a specific kind of frustration that's hard to explain to someone who hasn't felt it. You're in the middle of a sentence and the word you need — a word you've used a thousand times — just isn't there. You watch someone's face while they're talking to you and you catch maybe sixty percent of what they're saying before the thread slips. You pick up a set of written instructions and have to read the same paragraph three times before it lands.

That was my life for a stretch. And the hardest part wasn't the gaps themselves — it was the uncertainty. Was this getting better? Getting worse? Was I imagining it? Was I working on the right things? I had no way to measure what was happening, and no structured way to practice. That uncertainty is what sent me searching — and I've been doing something about it, consistently, ever since.

That's what sent me looking for tools. And that search is how I found Constant Therapy.

I want to be upfront: this post is my personal experience, not a clinical recommendation. I'm sharing real numbers from my own dashboard because I think concrete data is more useful than vague encouragement. These numbers span from early 2020 all the way to July 2026 — over six and a half years of consistent work. But everyone's brain is different, every situation is different, and this is just one person's story.

So, What Is Constant Therapy?

Constant Therapy is a digital cognitive rehabilitation app originally developed at Boston University. It was built for people recovering from stroke, traumatic brain injury (TBI), aphasia, dementia, and other neurological conditions — though it's also used by people who simply want to work on specific cognitive and communication skills in a structured, evidence-based way.

The app offers over 65 research-based exercises targeting a wide range of cognitive and communication domains: memory, attention, reasoning, reading, speaking, listening, math, and more. What sets it apart from a generic brain-training app is its adaptive engine — called the NeuroPerformance Engine — which adjusts task difficulty based on your actual performance. The exercises stay appropriately challenging without tipping into demoralizing. It's a fine line, and the app walks it well.

You can work through sessions at home, on your own schedule. Your progress data can also be shared with a speech-language pathologist or clinician if you're working with one. Hundreds of thousands of patients have used it.

Important Note

Constant Therapy's own disclaimer is worth repeating: "Constant Therapy does not provide rehabilitation services and does not guarantee improvements in brain function." I think that honesty is part of why I trust it. It's a tool — a very good one — not a cure.

How It Works, Day to Day

Each session is made up of targeted exercises in specific skill areas. When you start a new skill area, the app establishes a baseline score. From that point forward, everything is tracked on a 0–100 scale: your baseline, your current score, how much you've improved, and what your next milestone is.

The tasks are described in plain, concrete language. You always know exactly what you're doing and why. Are you working on "remembering and saying 7 numbers"? The app tells you that. "Using logic to organize complex abstract information"? Yep, that too. There's no ambiguity about what skill you're practicing, which makes it easier to connect the work to real-life moments when you notice a difference.

Sessions don't have to be long. I usually do fifteen to twenty minutes. The app is designed to fit into real life, not replace it.

My Progress: The Real Numbers

Okay. Here's the part I actually wanted to write. Because I've seen a lot of wellness content that says things like "I feel so much better!" without giving you anything to hold onto. I want to give you something concrete. What you're about to see is the result of over six and a half years of showing up — from early 2020 through today, July 2026. Not a sprint. Not a challenge. A long, patient, sometimes frustrating, often rewarding commitment to practicing.

Here's a summary of where I started and where I am now across all the skill areas I've been working on:

Skill Area	Baseline	Current	Improvement	Status
Analytical Reasoning	34	79	+45	In Progress (Next: 89)
Reading Comprehension	80	96	+16	✓ COMPLETED
Speaking	33	53	+20	In Progress (Next: 55)
Auditory Memory	37	48	+11	In Progress (Next: 57)
Visuospatial Processing	95	100	+5	✓ COMPLETED
Spoken Auditory Memory	7	35	+28	In Progress
Attention	87	100	+13	✓ COMPLETED
Auditory Comprehension	66	74	+8	In Progress
Visual Memory	18	33	+15	In Progress
Arithmetic	80	83	+3	In Progress
Quantitative Reasoning	50	55	+5	In Progress

Now let me walk through the ones that feel most significant to me personally.

Analytical Reasoning: From 34 to 79 (+45 points)

This one stopped me in my tracks when I saw it. I started this skill area putting lists of words in alphabetical order. Simple sorting tasks. And I wasn't doing them quickly or confidently at a score of 34.

Now I'm at 79, working on using logic to organize complex abstract information — and my next milestone is 89. That is nearly a doubling of my baseline score. I honestly didn't expect gains like that, and seeing them laid out plainly in the app made something click for me: the brain can actually do this. It can grow.

Reading Comprehension: 80 to 96 — Completed ✓

This one I'm proud of in a quiet way. I started at 80 — already decent — but both then and now, the task involves "reading between the lines" across multiple paragraphs. The difference is the level at which I'm doing it. The same type of task became dramatically more nuanced and complex as I progressed, and I finished the skill area at 96. Completed. Done. That word felt good to see. It still does.

Speaking: From 33 to 53 (+20 points)

Of all the areas I've been working on, this one hits closest to home. The gap between what I know and what I can say out loud — that's the frustrating one. I started by naming complex objects in pictures. Now I'm naming complex actions in pictures, with a current score of 53 and my next milestone at 55. Twenty points of improvement in speaking feels enormous when you're living inside it. I notice it most in conversations — moments where the word actually arrives when I reach for it.

Auditory Memory: From 37 to 48 (+11 points)

I started this skill area trying to remember words I had just heard. Now the app has me retaining information from a complex short story. The jump from 37 to 48 may look modest in a table, but in practice it maps onto things like: following a conversation without losing the thread, actually retaining what someone just told me, not needing them to repeat themselves twice. My next milestone is 57, and I'm working toward it.

Visuospatial Processing: 95 to 100 — Completed ✓

I started this one already near the top — reading and understanding everyday maps — and I pushed it all the way to 100, completing the skill area by mastering complex everyday maps. A smaller point gain on paper, but reaching 100 and finishing a category feels like crossing a finish line. I'll take it.

A Few More Worth Mentioning

My Spoken Auditory Memory score went from a 7 to a 35 (+28 points). That's the one where I started trying to repeat back 3 numbers I'd just heard — and I'm now up to 7. My Attention score completed at 100 (up from 87). Visual Memory climbed from 18 to 33. These aren't flashy numbers, but they represent real practice, real sessions, real mornings over six-plus years where I opened the app even when I didn't feel like it.

What These Numbers Feel Like in Real Life

"A +45 in analytical reasoning doesn't sound like much until you realize it means you can read a paragraph and actually follow the argument — not just the words."

Let me try to make this concrete, because numbers on a screen only mean so much. Going from a 7 to a 35 in Spoken Auditory Memory — from repeating 3 numbers to 7 — sounds like a party trick. But what it actually means is: when my doctor gives me instructions, I can hold onto them long enough to write them down. When someone rattles off a phone number, I've got it. When my wife tells me something in passing, it sticks a little longer than it used to.

The analytical reasoning jump — 34 to 79 — shows up as being able to follow a multi-step problem without getting lost. Reading a recipe and actually tracking what I've done. Having a back-and-forth conversation about something complicated and not losing the thread. Speaking improving by 20 points? That's finding words. Not always. Not perfectly. But more often than before, and that matters more than any number.

I want to be honest, too: not everything is fixed. I still have hard days. I still lose words. I still re-read things. The journey isn't over, and I'm not standing here with a ribbon around my recovery. But there are genuinely fewer of those moments than there used to be, and I have data showing me the direction I'm moving. That is not nothing. That is actually a lot.

But Wait — I Can Read. So What Does All This Actually Mean?

Here's something I tell people pretty often, and I think it gets at the heart of what these scores are really measuring. Yes, I can read. Technically, I can read just fine. My Reading Comprehension score hit 96 — the app called it completed. And yet, if you give me a choice between reading something and watching a video about it, I'm picking the video every time. That's not laziness. That's my brain telling me what actually works for it.

What Constant Therapy helped me understand is the difference between being technically capable of something and having your brain work well at it. These aren't the same thing, and that gap is exactly what this kind of structured practice is designed to address. The app doesn't just ask "can you do this?" — it measures how efficiently and accurately your brain processes information as the complexity increases. So when someone says "I can read fine," what the scores might actually reveal is that yes, they can read — but it's costing them more cognitive effort than it should, or comprehension starts to slip when the material gets complicated.

The video thing connects directly to my Auditory Comprehension and Auditory Memory work too. Going from 66 to 74 in Auditory Comprehension and 37 to 48 in Auditory Memory isn't just about following conversations better — it's about why a multisensory, auditory-first experience like video has always felt more natural to me. My brain has always leaned toward sound and context together. These improvements haven't changed that preference; they've helped me understand it. And there's something genuinely freeing about that. Knowing how your brain actually works — not how you think it should work — lets you stop fighting yourself and start working with yourself instead.

The gap between what we can do and what works well for us is real, it's valid, and it's exactly worth paying attention to.

Who Might Benefit from Constant Therapy?

If you're wondering whether this app is for you, here's my honest take on who I think could find real value in it:

●      People recovering from stroke, brain injury, or aphasia — this is exactly what the app was built for, and the structure it provides between clinical appointments is genuinely useful.

●      Those living with early-stage dementia or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) — having a structured, low-pressure way to practice cognitive skills at home gives a sense of agency that's easy to lose.

●      People working with a speech-language pathologist who want meaningful, therapist-aligned homework they can do independently.

●      Anyone who notices cognitive changes — whether from illness, medication, age, or stress — and wants an evidence-based, structured way to practice rather than just hoping things improve.

A Friendly but Firm Reminder

Please talk to your doctor, neurologist, or speech-language pathologist before starting any cognitive rehabilitation program. I'm sharing my experience, not prescribing a treatment. Your situation is your own, and a healthcare professional can help you figure out what approach makes sense for you.

Closing Thoughts: Show Up, Even on the Hard Days

Recovery — and cognitive improvement generally — is not a straight line. There are days when I open the app and everything clicks, and days when I sit there staring at the screen wondering if any of this is doing anything. Both kinds of days are part of it.

What I've learned is that small wins are still wins. A score that goes from 7 to 35 didn't happen in a day. It happened in fifteen-minute sessions, some of them frustrating, some of them surprisingly satisfying, stacked on top of each other over six and a half years. That's the real story behind every number in this post — not talent, not a breakthrough moment, just consistency. It's not glamorous, but it's what creates the change.

Tools like Constant Therapy won't do the work for you. They give you a structured, meaningful way to show up — and showing up is the whole game.

I'll keep sharing updates here as my numbers change. If you've used Constant Therapy, are considering it, or are navigating cognitive recovery in any form, I'd genuinely love to hear from you in the comments. We're not doing this alone.