What Modifications Might Be Needed For Persons With Dementia
Declining cognitive abilities will impact yoga instruction. Patients with MCI and dementia may have difficulty with attention and carrying out multi-step commands. Thus, individual yoga classes or those with a smaller number of participants are recommended. Having multiple instructors, one to demonstrate the pose and one or more to work directly with individuals, may help dementia patients participate.20 Providing more verbal explanation in addition to the physical demonstration of the pose may be useful.23 Depending upon dementia severity, patients may not remember poses from previous classes. Therefore, the class should be taught as if each pose is new to the participant. If home practice is a goal, having the caregiver present to learn the pose can be useful for increasing practice.23 Similarly, starting with easier poses and gradually building to more complex poses may be helpful.
Baseline level of activity needs to be assessed. Patients who are regularly inactive may need to start with a shorter class length and gradually increase time to build endurance and stamina.21 Further, some individuals will be at greater risk of falls. In these cases, chair yoga is recommended.21,48 Poses can be modified to be performed while seated in order to minimize risk of falls and injury. With these modifications, yoga for cognitively impaired older adults is safe, with only minor safety events reported in the reviewed studies.
Aerobic Exercise And The Brain
Its well established that aerobic exercise like running, swimming or anything that gets your heart rate up may be one of the single most important things you can do for your brain and body health. Exercise is known to stimulate neurons, reduce the risk of dementia and even slow down the aging process.
Wendy Suzuki, a neuroscientist at New York University, says that even mild to moderate exercise can reduce your risk of dementia by 30 percent. In a past Being Patient interview, Suzuki referred to a study that found the most intensely active women had the lowest chances of developing dementia.
If you were high-fit, you were 90 percent less likely to have developed dementia, Suzuki said. That tells me that in the range of exercise thats attainable these are not Olympic athletes here we can change our probability of getting dementia by between 30 percent with walking and 90 percent with being a high-fit person.
Yoga For Brain Health
Would you find an hour a week to practice yoga and meditate 20 minutes a day to prevent Alzheimers? A study at UCLA proved that it might be time well spent. Subjects who did Kundalini yoga for an hour just once a week along with daily meditation for 20 minutes minimized cognitive impairments that precede Alzheimers better than memory enhancement exercises.
If your time is limited you may want to turn off the Luminosity brain games and find a mat for yoga poses in order to reduce your risk of brain decline. Results are both fast and forever as long as you continue practicing. Most of the studies with significant results have been eight to twelve weeks. You could be more clear-headed in two months.
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Other Ways To Take Care Of Your Health
Get a good nights sleep
Sleep is important for your mental wellbeing and it may reduce your risk of dementia. A good nights sleep for many people is around seven to eight hours.
Obstructive sleep apnoea is a sleep disorder that may particularly increase a persons risk of getting dementia. This is because it reduces the amount of oxygen that gets to the brain. People who have sleep apnoea stop breathing during their sleep and then wake up with a start.
If you have any problems sleeping well, particularly sleep apnoea, speak to your GP about getting support.
Protect your hearing and get it tested
Hearing loss may increase your risk of getting dementia. However the reasons for this are still unclear.
Many people start to lose their hearing as they get older, though they may not notice it at first.
To avoid hearing loss increasing your risk of getting dementia, its important to get your hearing tested. You may be able to book a free hearing test at your local optician or speak to your GP about being referred to an audiologist . This will show up any hearing issues and provide ways of managing them, such as using a hearing aid.
Often, managing hearing loss works best when you start doing it early on. This means protecting your hearing from a young age. For example, you can avoid listening to loud noises for long periods, and wear ear protection when necessary.
Protect your head
Serious TBIs in younger people are mostly caused by:
- road traffic accidents
The Benefits Of Chair Yoga For Persons With Dementia
When caring for a loved one with dementia, its important to find engaging activities to help keep them active. Thankfully, chair yoga is a great option! There are benefits of chair yoga for everyone. Its an opportunity to stretch, strengthen, and improve flexibility with the safety of a stable chair for balance. It also provides important breathing and relaxation techniques through stationary poses and guided relaxation of various muscle groups.
Chair Yoga May Improve Quality of Life
According to a recent Florida Atlantic University study, chair yoga may help improve quality of life in dementia patients. The study involved older adults with moderate-to-severe dementia. Participants attended 45-minute sessions twice a week for 12 weeks. Results showed that more than 97% of the participants fully engaged in each session.
According to the studys lead author, Juyoung Park, Ph.D.:
It is fascinating that, although some participants showed mild levels of agitation or wandering in the intervention room prior to the yoga session, they became calm and attentive when the yoga interventionist started demonstrating yoga poses. Although they did not understand the interventionists verbal instructions due to their cognitive impairment associated with advanced dementia, they followed the instructors poses.
Chair Yoga Can Improve Balance
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Introduction Can Yoga Help Dementia
Yoga is a group of exercises that have been firstpracticed in ancient India. It has been originated more than three thousandyears ago and is actual until today. Nowadays, there are several types of yoga.However, all of them are known to increase the overall health and well-being ofthose practicing it. 1
Moreover, today, scientists claim that yoga andmeditation are beneficial for people having dementia and other types ofcognitive and physical disorders.
Several studies resulted in yoga-related improvementof psychological and physical health. Yoga helped patients with dementia toimprove their cognition and even resulted in pain relief. Also, people feltmore empowered and calm after yoga exercises. 2
Exercise Your Way To Better Brain Health
Of the five components in Sherzai’s lifestyle intervention, exercise is the one he typically recommends implementing first.
“Whenever we apply behavior change to a population, we’re looking to create sustainable habits with small successes people can see right away, and nothing is better than exercise. It’s easy to implement, measurable and precise, with a fast return,” Sherzai said.
After only a few weeks of regular exercise, his patients often feel better, get better sleep and their lipid and blood glucose profiles improve. Sherzai explained that these are some of the indirect ways exercise reduces risk for Alzheimer’s, because each of those factors are associated with higher rates of the disease.
He also listed three direct links between exercise and improved brain health:
First direct benefit: Exercise increases blood flow to the brain, which delivers more oxygen and nutrients.
Second direct benefit: It simultaneously flushes inflammatory and oxidative elements out the brain faster. “Cognitive decline starts vascularly,” Sherzai said, “and exercise helps with this more than anything else.
Third direct benefit: An increase in a chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor which Sherzai says, “is almost like growth hormones for neurons, but specifically for the connections between neurons.” Maintaining these neuronal connections is a key in preventing Alzheimer’s disease.
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The Effects Of Yoga On Patients With Dementia And Alzheimers Disease
Dementia Australia, the leading information and support organisation for dementia in the country, found that 30 percent of Australians over 85 and nearly 10 percent of those over 65 currently suffer from some form of dementia.
They are part of the over 400 thousand Australians who were found to have dementia in 2019, and this number is only expected to grow in the following decades.
Physical Benefits Of Yoga For Dementia Patients
Discovery Village provides yoga for dementia patients which has positive effects on the physical body. Studies have shown that the benefits of yoga for dementia patients include better psycho-motor movements, flexibility, and posture. Yoga also helps to improve core muscles to enable better stability and balance while increasing oxygen intake and lung capacity. For dementia patients with disabilities, yoga exercises can also be modified to provide ways for dementia patients to learn yoga. By altering the yoga poses through creative ways and suitable pacing, everyone can be a part of a fun yoga regime. All these benefits, in turn, improves brain health, which goes a long way to better mental health and cognition for dementia patients.
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Types Of Yoga Poses That Can Help Individuals With Dementia
There are different types of yoga that individuals with dementia can participate in. One of the most popular is known as Hatha which is a combination of many styles.
It primarily focused on breathing-controlled exercises and yoga postures which end with a resting period .
However, there is one type of yoga that most people with dementia practice especially as the disease progresses and this is known as chair yoga.
Below is a highlight of what yoga is all about.
Chair Yoga
Chair yoga is a great option especially for persons with dementia who cannot handle too many yoga moves while standing.
It offers an opportunity for participants to stretch, improve flexibility and strengthen muscles while using a stable chair that offers balance.
Chair yoga also offers important relaxation and breathing techniques through stationary poses as well as guided relaxation that target different muscle groups.
A study from Florida Atlantic University confirmed that chair yoga can help improve the quality of life for people with dementia. The participants of the study were older adults with moderate to severe dementia.
Participants attended 45 minutes sessions two times a week for twelve weeks. The results indicated that over 97% of the participants were fully engaged in all the sessions.
He continued to say that even though some did not understand verbal instructions from the interventionist, they still followed the poses from the instructor.
Can Meditation Help Prevent Dementia
Can meditation help prevent dementia? Without a doubt, the benefits of yoga exercise and also meditation for Alzheimers as well as dementia are significant as well as numerous. Can meditation help prevent dementia? Whilst there is no treatment for Alzheimers, research study recommends that yoga and also reflection may play a role in avoidance as well as improve signs and symptoms and also top quality of life for individuals as well as their caregivers. In this article, youll learn can meditation help prevent dementia?
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Yoga Memory And Alzheimer’s Disease
Yoga and meditation exercises have long been practiced in some parts of our world, but they’re a newer discipline for many in Western society. Scientific research is relatively young in this area as well, but studies are finding that yoga has been connected to several physical and emotional benefits. Of note, some research is also asking questions about how yoga might affect our memory and decision-making skills, and perhaps even help delay or reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s diseasethe most common cause of dementia.
Multiple studies have been conducted to evaluate if, and how, yoga affects cognition. Researchers have found the following associations with the practice of yoga.
Have An Nhs Health Check
An NHS Health Check is a free check-up of your overall health for people aged 40 to 74 who do not have heart disease, diabetes or kidney disease, and have not had a stroke. It’s offered every 5 years.
The NHS Health Check can help find early signs and tell you if you’re at higher risk of certain health problems that can also increase your risk of dementia. These include:
- heart disease
- kidney disease
- stroke
If you’re over age 65, you’ll be told the signs and symptoms of dementia to look out for. You’ll also be given advice on how to lower your risk of dementia.
If you have not been invited for an NHS Health Check, ask your GP surgery.
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Does Doing Downward Dog Delay Dementia
Exercise is a key component when implementing healthy lifestyle changes to prevent the onset of particular diseases like Alzheimers disease or related dementias. Prior research points to aerobic exercise being the most beneficial however, this type of vigorous is not always feasible or accessible to older adults who are looking to use physical activity as a preventative measure against dementia.
At the end of 2019, the journal Brain Plasticity published a review of 11 studies that illuminate the possibility of yoga as an alternative to garnering the benefits aerobic exercise offers to prevent memory loss.
All eleven of these yoga-based studies employed the use of brain-imaging technologies, like MRI, to determine brain volume and function of all participants. Researchers in these studies found that participants who practiced yoga not only retained, but increased the size of, the hippocampus. This brain structure is considered to be the center for memory and cognition. Not coincidentally, its also one of the first affected by dementia such as Alzheimers disease. It can stand to be reasoned, therefore, that yoga may help combat age-related memory loss and even increase an individuals ability to retain memory. The studies included both participants that had zero prior experience practicing yoga and regular yoga practitioners.
Does Yoga Help Prevent Dementia
Activities like yoga that incorporate movement with breath and mindfulness have been shown to be very effective in helping to stave off dementia or slow its progression. Weve seen some evidence that it improves memory.
A study conducted by a team of UCLA-led neuroscientists found that a three-month course of yoga and meditation practice helped minimize the cognitive and emotional problems that often precede Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia and that it was even more effective than the memory enhancement exercises that have been considered the gold standard for managing mild cognitive impairment. This evidence of the positive impacts of practicing yoga on the mind and nervous system has led doctors to recommend it as an effective therapy for their patients.
Yoga is an excellent tool and one of the many activities for the elderly with memory loss at The Village at Rancho Solano. Under careful supervision, residents participate in chair yoga, boxing, walking clubs, and other fitness programs to help them achieve an active body and mind.
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Stay Mentally And Socially Active
Engaging in mental or social activities may help to build up your brains ability to cope with disease, relieve stress and improve your mood. This means doing these activities may help to delay, or even prevent, dementia from developing.
Find activities you enjoy that challenge your brain, and do them regularly. This could be puzzles or crosswords, but there are also many other activities you could do.
Anything that engages your mind, processes information and develops your thinking skills is good for the brain and reducing your risk. For example:
- any kind of adult education or learning
- arts and crafts
- playing a musical instrument or singing
- doing brainteasers, such as puzzles, crosswords or quizzes
- playing card games, chess or board games
- reading books, or becoming a member of a book club
- creative writing or keeping a diary
- learning a new language.
If you use a smartphone or tablet you might enjoy apps that can provide mental stimulation. These include puzzle, memory or board game apps.
Social activities are also good for the brain, making them a great way to reduce your risk of getting dementia. This includes interacting with other people online as well as in person. This means its important to try to keep in touch with the people who matter to you, such as friends and family.
Prevention The Magic Pill
While there is no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, and an estimated 3% of all cases are entirely genetic, recent research suggests that some lifestyle interventions could slow its progression.
“Whenever we apply behavior change to a population, we’re looking to create sustainable habits with small successes people can see right away, and nothing is better than exercise.
Dr. Dean Sherzai, a clinical neurologist and co-director of the Brain Health and Alzheimer’s Prevention Program at Loma Linda University in California, has developed a five-component lifestyle intervention therapy he uses with patients.
“We have people coming to us with early signs, or so-called subjective impairment, and then we have people a little more advanced, classified as having mild cognitive impairment, or MCI,” Sherzai explained. “We give them interventions, give them advice on changes they can make to their lifestyle components and we look at what happens.”
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This Popular Activity Can Help Your Body And Your Brain
Approximately 36 million Americans practice yoga, according to The Good Body. The practice has long been known as a popular activity with benefits that range from reducing anxiety to improving your love life, as well as being an effective way to burn calories. The NIH reports that according to a 2012 survey, 94 percent of adults practice yoga for wellness-related reasons, 17.5 percent utilize the activity to treat a health condition, and that some people do both.
Now research is showing that yoga can have a profound effect on your cognitive health, too. “When people think of yoga, they imagine stretching their body into various poses. While this is true, it also has many benefits for the brain,” says Doreen Cooper, a certified yoga instructor and health and life coach. “Yoga can reduce stress and inflammation, and improve resilience in lost or damaged genetic material, creating a more ‘fit brain.'”