Pillar #: Stress Management
Chronic or persistent stress can take a heavy toll on the brain, leading to shrinkage in a key memory area, hampering nerve cell growth, and increasing the risk of Alzheimers disease and dementia. Yet simple stress management tools can minimize its harmful effects and protect your brain.
Breathe! Quiet your stress response with deep, abdominal breathing. Restorative breathing is powerful, simple, and free!
Schedule daily relaxation activities. Keeping stress under control requires regular effort. Learning relaxation techniques such as meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, or yoga can help you unwind and reverse the damaging effects of stress.
Nourish inner peace. Regular meditation, prayer, reflection, and religious practice may immunize you against the damaging effects of stress.
Make fun a priority. All work and no play is not good for your stress levels or your brain. Make time for leisure activities that bring you joy, whether it be stargazing, playing the piano, or working on your bike.
Keep your sense of humor. This includes the ability to laugh at yourself. The act of laughing helps your body fight stress.
Risk Factors That Cannot Be Controlled
The non-modifiable risk factors include:
- age the incidence of Alzheimers disease increases with age, with one in 30 Australians aged 70 to 74 years estimated to have dementia, increasing to one in eight aged 80 to 84 years and one in three of those aged 90 to 94 years
- genetics the genetics of dementia is not fully understood, but there are inherited genes in some forms of dementia, including familial Alzheimers disease, Down syndrome and familial frontotemporal dementia.
What Do We Know About Reducing Risk For Dementia
The number of older Americans is rising, so the number of people with dementia is predicted to increase. However, some studies have shown that incidence rates of dementia meaning new cases in a population over a certain period of time have decreased in some locations, including in the United States. Based on observational studies, factors such as healthy lifestyle behaviors and higher levels of education may be contributing to such a decline. But the cause and effect is uncertain, and such factors need to be tested in a clinical trial to prove whether they can prevent dementia.
A review of published research evaluated the evidence from clinical trials on behavior and lifestyle changes to prevent or delay Alzheimers or age-related cognitive decline. The review found encouraging but inconclusive evidence for three types of behavioral changes : physical activity, blood pressure control, and cognitive training. The findings mean that interventions in these areas are promising enough that researchers should keep studying them to learn more. Researchers continue to explore these and other interventions to determine whether and in what amounts or forms they might prevent dementia.
Watch a video below that highlights conclusions and recommendations from the research review.
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Keep Your Mind Active
An active mind may help lower the risk of dementia, so keep challenging yourself. Some examples would be:
- study something new, like a new language
- do puzzles and play games
- read challenging books
- learn to read music, take up an instrument, or start writing
- stay socially engaged: keep in touch with others or join group activities
Interventions For Neuropsychiatric Symptoms Of Dementia
Neuropsychiatric symptoms are common and often clustered in people with dementia. These symptoms might precede dementia and are associated with tau and amyloid neuropathology.210 This suggests that underlying neurobiological mechanisms might underpin neuropsychiatric symptoms. However, other drivers relating to the personal history and the environment of the person with dementia are also likely to exist. Neurodegeneration could lead to increased vulnerability to stressors or triggers. Genetics, cognitive reserve, resilience, medical comorbidities, and environment including responses of carers might modify these relationships. Needs and responses will also be individual and relate to a person’s own social, cultural, and historical context. First-line assessment and management of neuropsychiatric symptoms should focus on basic health: describe and diagnose symptoms look for causes such as pain , illness, discomfort, hunger, loneliness, boredom, lack of intimacy and worry that could cause the behaviours and alleviate these while considering risks of harm.2
Proportion of patients with a diagnosis of dementia prescribed an antipsychotic drug and those prescribed an anxiolytic, hypnotic, or antidepressant
CPRD=Clinical Practice Research Datalink. Reproduced from Donegan et al,211 by permission of Elsevier.
Depression
Agitation
Psychotic symptoms in dementia
Apathy
Sleep
Carers
Functioning
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Pillar #: Social Engagement
Human beings are highly social creatures. We dont thrive in isolation, and neither do our brains. Staying socially engaged may even protect against symptoms of Alzheimers disease and dementia in later life, so make developing and maintaining a strong network of friends a priority.
You dont need to be a social butterfly or the life of the party, but you do need to regularly connect face-to-face with someone who cares about you and makes you feel heard. While many of us become more isolated as we get older, its never too late to meet others and develop new friendships:
- Join a club or social group.
- Visit your local community center or senior center.
- Take group classes .
- Get to know your neighbors.
- Make a weekly date with friends.
Dementia Prevention: Reduce Your Risk Starting Now
Dementia is defined by loss of memory, problems with thinking and reasoning, and an inability to carry on with work and life activities independently. There are several kinds of dementia. Alzheimers disease is the most common, but for up to a third of people with dementia, even some of those diagnosed with Alzheimers, vascular disease is a major cause.
The good news is you can lower your risk of dementia. A Johns Hopkins neurologist, explains how.
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What Is A Risk Factor
A risk factor is something that increases your chances of developing a condition like dementia. Some of these, like our age and genetics, we cant change.
However, research suggests that up to 40% of cases of dementia are linked to modifiable factors we can influence ourselves.
For those who would like to improve their brain health, here we look at some of the changes we can make to keep our brains healthy and to reduce our risk of developing dementia.
Education And Midlife And Late
Education level reached
Higher childhood education levels and lifelong higher educational attainment reduce dementia risk.2, 35, 36, 37 New work suggests overall cognitive ability increases, with education, before reaching a plateau in late adolescence, when brain reaches greatest plasticity with relatively few further gains with education after age 20 years.38 This suggests cognitive stimulation is more important in early life much of the apparent later effect might be due to people of higher cognitive function seeking out cognitively stimulating activities and education.38 It is difficult to separate out the specific impact of education from the effect of overall cognitive ability,38, 39 and the specific impact of later-life cognitive activity from lifelong cognitive function and activity.39, 40
Cognitive maintenance
One large study in China tried to separate cognitive activity in adulthood from activities for those with more education, by considering activities judged to appeal to people of different levels of education.40 It found people older than 65 years who read, played games, or bet more frequently had reduced risk of dementia . The study excluded people developing dementia less than 3 years after baseline to reduce reverse causation.
Cognitive decline
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Dementia Causes And Effects
Different types of dementia have specific causes, symptoms and consequences.
Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, accounts for about 60 percent to 80 percent of cases. Experts are uncertain how the disease is triggered, but most believe it is caused by an abnormal buildup of proteins within and around nerve cells, which disrupt and damage neural pathways. Vascular dementia, caused by microscopic bleeding and blood vessel blockages in the brain, is the second most common cause, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Other types include frontotemporal dementia and Lewy body dementia mixed dementia is the name given to a combination of two or more forms.
Anjali Patel, D.O., a neurologist for Atlantic Health System in New Jersey, said dementia can manifest in all areas of the brain, producing specific effects depending on the impacted region.
Based on the disease type and severity, as well as a person’s circumstances and general health, she explained that these disorders can have various physical, cognitive and psychological implications. These include an increased risk of anxiety and depression, difficulty with emotional regulation, and memory and communication issues.
Dementia can produce physical side effects such as reduced mobility and increased vulnerability to complications, according to Jamie Wilson, the founder and chief medical officer at Hometouch, a live-in care provider, and a former dementia psychiatrist based in London.
Ways To Lower Your Alzheimers Risk
Adopting four of five healthy lifestyle measures may lower your risk of developing Alzheimers disease by up to 60 percent, according to a new report. The study, of nearly 3,000 men and women who were enrolled in two separate studies, found that the healthier your lifestyle, the lower your risk of developing Alzheimers disease.
The five measures the researchers tested were:
Regular exercise. Physical activity is good for the heart and blood vessels, including those in the brain. Experts recommend getting at least 150 minutes a week of moderate to vigorous intensity exercise. Studies have shown that regular aerobic activities like walking, cycling or climbing stairs improved thinking skills in people in their 20s, and that the benefits of exercise on thinking skills continued to accrue as people age. Exercise can also be good for people with Alzheimers, helping to improve coordination and prevent falls, a leading cause of disability in older people.
Dont smoke. Smoking has been shown to speed up cognitive decline and may spur the onset of Alzheimers disease. It damages blood vessels throughout the body, including in the brain. Middle-aged smokers score worse on memory tests than their nonsmoking peers, studies show. But quitting smoking, regardless of age, has benefits. Even in people over 60 who have been lifelong smokers, quitting will improve health, and the benefits may be immediate.
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Physical Illness Delirium And Dementia
Dementia and delirium frequently occur together. In one hospital inpatients’ survey nearly 35% of those older than 80 years experienced delirium those with prior cognitive impairment had 15 times the risk of developing delirium than those without .282 People with delirium without known dementia are more likely to be diagnosed with dementia in the future than others, either because of pre-existing undiagnosed dementia or cognitive impairment, present in 20·7% and 37·8% respectively of one cohort, or because delirium has neurotoxic effects and so precipitates dementia.283 People with similar neuropathology show faster cognitive decline if they develop delirium than if they do not.284 Additionally, older people without dementia declined cognitively more than twice as fast after an emergency hospital admission for any cause, compared with those not admitted, suggesting any severe illness is associated with cognitive decline.285 Risk factors for delirium in dementia include sensory impairment, pain, polypharmacy, dehydration, intercurrent illnesses, such as urinary tract infections or faecal impaction, and an unfamiliar or changing environment.286 Delirium in older people should prompt consideration of underlying dementia.
A network meta-analysis of drugs for prevention and treatment of delirium did not include studies of people with dementia, thus we cannot use this to recommend drugs for people with dementia and delirium as this research might be inapplicable to them.291
Combined Cardiovascular Risk Factors
Studies of individual cardiovascular risk factors usually control for other cardiovascular risks, which cluster in individual people. This does not take into account the combinations and contexts in which risk occurs. A UK study of 7899 people aged 50 years followed up for 25 years, calculated a cardiovascular health score based on four behaviour-related and three biological metrics each coded on a three-point scale .100 A better score was associated with a lower risk of dementia , for both behaviour-related and biological subscales , maintained in people free of cardiovascular disease over the follow-up . These authors also reported an association of the score on the scale with hippocampal atrophy and total brain volume but not white matter hyperintensities. This finding underlines the importance of clustering of cardiovascular risk factors in midlife, as studies of individual risk factors in this sample had not shown a significant association, when controlling for other individual risks.33
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Reduce Your Risk Of Dementia
As we get older we can experience changes to our brain function, such as slower processing of information and increased forgetfulness, and this is considered to be normal. However, when we think of increased forgetfulness we often associate the term with Alzheimers disease or dementia. Although some people experience forgetfulness as a symptom of dementia, dementia itself is not a normal part of ageing.
The prevalence of dementia in Australia is increasing, and for many older Australians this is a growing concern. Most people can reduce their risk of developing dementia as they age, and this involves looking at lifestyle factors including: diet and exercise, whether you smoke, and how much alcohol you consume.
Simple changes you can make to reduce your risk of developing dementia include:
- Eating a healthy diet
- Ensuring you get enough sleep
- Staying socially active
- Engaging in mentally challenging activities
- Increasing exercise
Taking Part In Mentally Stimulating Activities
Some studies have linked mentally stimulating activities by reducing the risk of dementia. Others too, have linked spending MORE TIME studying to lowering the risks.
Engaging in mentally stimulating activities that one enjoys in a social setup increases the chances of successful cognitive training.
Although its not crystal clear which activities are more beneficial, its advisable that one engages in WHAT THEY LOVE. That could be reading, playing an instrument or even tackling crosswords.
This way, ones brain is kept active, improving and maintaining their mental wellbeing as it also helps boosts ones spirits while socializing with others.
Good thing is, one can strengthen their brain at any age, whether through leisure activities or workplace achievement.
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Tips For Starting And Sticking With An Exercise Plan
If youve been inactive for a while, starting an exercise program can be intimidating. But remember: a little exercise is better than none. In fact, adding just modest amounts of physical activity to your weekly routine can have a profound effect on your health.
Choose activities you enjoy and start smalla 10-minute walk a few times a day, for exampleand allow yourself to gradually build up your momentum and self-confidence.
Your Brain Is Your Most Valuable Asset
Being brain healthy is relevant at any age, whether you are young, old or in between. However, it is particularly important once you reach middle age as this is when changes start to occur in the brain.
The risk factors for dementia are different in everybody.
Your potential for developing dementia may be influenced by:
Non-modifiable risk factors are risks that cannot be changed, such as:
- age as you age, your risk of developing dementia increases
- genetics there are a few very rare forms of dementia associated with specific genes
- family history a family history of dementia increases your risk of developing dementia but at this stage it is not clear why.
Modifiable risk factors are risks that can be changed through lifestyle choices. You can reduce your risk of dementia by looking after your:
Whilst we cannot change getting older, genetics or family history, scientific research suggests that changing certain health and lifestyle habits may make a big difference to reducing or delaying your risk of developing dementia.
Its never too early or too late to start.
Learn more about how to reduce the risk of dementia and explore our risk reduction resources.
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Risk Factors For Dementia We Can’t Change
Our age
The biggest risk factor for dementia is age. The older we are, the more likely we are to develop a disease that causes dementia, but these diseases are not a normal part of ageing.
About two in 100 people aged 65 to 69 years have dementia, and this figure rises to 19 in 100 for those aged 85 to 89.
Our genetics
As dementia is so common, many of us will have a relative living with the condition but this doesnt mean we will get it too.
Our risk of dementia is made up of many complex factors, including our age, environment, lifestyle, health and whether we carry any risk genes. Many of us may have risk genes for diseases that cause dementia. While these genes may increase our chances of developing dementia, having them does not mean someone will definitely get the condition because there are many other important factors that affect our risk too.
Research has found that people who carry common risk genes for Alzheimers disease can still reduce their risk by looking after their brain health. Dementia rates were 32% lower in people with a high genetic risk of Alzheimers that had a healthy lifestyle, compared to those with a high genetic risk and an unhealthy lifestyle. This important finding suggests that lifestyle changes can benefit us regardless of our genetic risk of Alzheimers disease.
Hearing Loss And Dementia Risk
People with hearing loss in midlife are at a higher risk of dementia. Older adults with hearing problems also have higher odds of dementia except for those who use hearing aids. socially isolating, Larson said. Social isolation and inability to engage with others in speech and listening has a detrimental effect on maintaining brain reserve.
Heres what you can do:To prevent hearing loss, Larson urged people to avoid excessive noise. Those who have hearing difficulties should seek testing and, if appropriate, use a hearing aid.
Read more about past research on the link between hearing loss and cognitive decline
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