This Tool Could Help Prevent Dementia

With dementia now estimated to impact 42 percent of people who make it past age 55, everyone should be taking steps to help decrease their risk for developing the condition. Yet while much of the conversation focuses on supplements, diet, and pharmaceuticals, one of the less publicized tools to mitigate risk could be one of the most important.

For background, it’s key to understand that, as it relates to dementia, brain changes can begin decades before a person experiences symptoms of cognitive decline. Yet not all people with dementia-related changes in their brains experience clinical dementia, and there are major differences in the severity of cognitive impairment, even in people with similar brain pathology (like amyloid buildup). But why?

A major breakthrough in unpacking this complexity came from a 1994 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). In this publication, Yaakov Stern and his co-investigators looked at about 600 healthy adults aged 60 years or older and followed them for up to four years to look for the development of dementia. They discovered that people who had more formal education or more complex occupations had a significantly lower chance (less than half) of developing dementia. They proposed that “increased educational and occupational attainment may reduce the risk of incident [Alzheimer’s disease], either by decreasing ease of clinical detection of AD or by imparting a reserve that delays the onset of clinical manifestations.”

This early work has since been expanded, and the framework described by the early work is now classified as “cognitive reserve” (CR). There is now an increased understanding that multiple methods of expanding brain connectivity and even growth of new brain cells could help to delay or potentially even offset the risk of developing dementia. Many now recommend various steps to help raise CR, which, in addition to pursuing formal education and engaging in cognitively demanding tasks (e.g., a complex job), include certain leisure activities, exercise, and social engagement.

It is important to note that the brain protection associated with higher CR isn’t necessarily a prevention of dementia itself, but rather, may promote a delayed decline. Research recently published in the journal Neurology suggests that having higher CR leads to a slowing of progression in stages of brain decline that precede a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, potentially compressing the cognitive impairment into a shorter period of time after dementia is present. With all this in mind, what are practical strategies to help boost CR?

1. Lifelong Learning: Education is one of the strongest contributors to CR. Higher educational attainment is linked to a significantly lower dementia risk in many studies, including up to a 44 percent reduction in some data. Importantly, this isn’t just about early life schooling. Learning later in life is an excellent step to continue to promote CR.
2. Cognitive Training: In one of the largest trials of its type, researchers in the ACTIVE Cognitive Training Trial tested whether 10 sessions of cognitive training (plus boosters after 11 and 35 months) could lead to improvements in cognition in around 3,000 people. They found that reasoning and speed training led to improvements in brain function observable 10 years later.
3. Physical Activity: Regular physical activity may be the most important daily activity for promoting brain health, but, specific to cognitive reserve, aerobic and resistance exercises may be especially beneficial for growing brain cells and protecting against dementia. One of the most striking examples is a 2011 study showing that one year of exercise (specifically walking) appeared to grow the brain’s memory center (the hippocampus).
4. Social Engagement: Strong and positive social interactions have been consistently linked with better brain health, but how? In a 2021 publication, researchers compared people’s social networks to brain imaging (MRI) testing. They found that people with more ability to span social roles had better cognitive testing and that this was linked to slowing of atrophy in parts of the brain linked to social processing.
5. Novelty: Our brains are tasked with responding to an incredible diversity of environmental inputs. However, consistently challenging ourselves with new experiences may be a way to beneficially augment this process to boost CR. To this end, learning a new instrument or a new language, traveling, or picking up a new hobby are great ways to inject novelty into your life.                                                                                       

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Ladies, if you want to live longer, you may want to think of living in the leafy suburbs, after this new study finds that leafy neighbourhoods can add years to your life. 

The study by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) found that women live longer in areas with more green vegetation.


It showed that women with the highest levels of vegetation, or greenness, near their homes had a 12% lower death rate compared to women with the lowest levels of vegetation near their homes. 

The researchers found the biggest differences in death rates from kidney disease, respiratory disease, and cancer. The researchers also explored how an environment with trees, shrubs, and plants might lower mortality rates. 

They showed that improved mental health and social engagement are the strongest factors, while increased physical activity and reduced air pollution also contribute.

NIEHS director Linda Birnbaum noted that it is important to know that trees and plants provide health benefits in our communities as well as beauty. The finding of reduced mortality suggests that vegetation may be important to health in a broad range of ways.


The scientists also looked at characteristics that can otherwise contribute to mortality risk, such as age, race, ethnicity, smoking, and socioeconomic status. This enabled them to be more confident that vegetation plays a role in reduced mortality, rather than these factors. 

The study appears in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

DEMENTIA - TIPS TO DELAY OR AVOID

Most of us start worrying about dementia after retirement - and that may be too little, too late. Experts say that if you really want to ward off dementia, you need to start taking care of your brain in your 30s and 40s - or even earlier.     "More and more research is suggesting that lifestyle is very important to your brain's health," says Dr. Paul Nussbaum, a neuro-psychologist and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "If you want to live a long, healthy life, then many of us need to start as early as we can."    So what can you do to beef up your brain - and possibly ward off dementia?  Nussbaum, who recently gave a speech on the topic for the Winter Park (Fla.) Health Foundation, offers 20 tips that may help.
1.	Join clubs or organizations that need volunteers.  If you start  volunteering now, you won't feel lost and unneeded after you retire.
2.	Develop a hobby or two.  Hobbies help you develop a robust brain because you're trying something new and complex.
3.	Practise writing with your non-dominant hand several minutes everyday.  This will          exercise the opposite side of your brain and fire up those neurons.
4.	Take dance lessons. In a study of nearly 500 people, dancing was the only regular physical activity associated with a significant decrease in the incidence of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease.  The people who danced three or four times a week showed 76 percent less incidence of dementia than those who danced only once a week or not at all.
5.	Need a hobby? Start gardening.  Researchers in New Zealand found that, of 1,000 people, those who gardened regularly were less likely to suffer from dementia!  Not only does gardening reduce stress, but gardeners use their brains to plan gardens; they use visual and spatial reasoning to lay out a garden.
6.	Buy a pedometer and walk 10,000 steps a day.  Walking daily can reduce the risk of dementia because cardiovascular health is important to maintain blood flow to the brain.
7.	Read and write daily. Reading stimulates a wide variety of brain areas that process and store information.  Likewise, writing (not copying) stimulates many areas of the brain as well.
8.	Start knitting. Using both hands works both sides of your brain.  And it's a stress reducer.
9.	Learn a new language. Whether it's a foreign language or sign language, you are working your brain by making it go back and forth between one language and the other.  A researcher in England found that being bilingual seemed to delay symptoms of Alzheimer's disease for four years.  And some research suggests that the earlier a child learns sign language, the higher his IQ - and people with high IQs are less likely to have dementia. So start them early.
10.	Play board games such as Scrabble and Monopoly.  Not only are you taxing your brain, you're socializing too.  Playing solo games, such as solitaire or online computer brain games can be helpful, but Nussbaum prefers games that encourage you to socialize too.
11.	Take classes throughout your lifetime.  Learning produces structural and chemical changes in the brain, and education appears to help people live longer.  Brain researchers have found that people with advanced degrees live longer - and if they do have Alzheimer's, it often becomes apparent only in the very later stages of the disease.
12.	Listen to classical music.  A growing volume of research suggests that music may hard wire the brain, building links between the two hemispheres. Any kind of music may work, but there's some research that shows positive effects for classical music, though researchers don't understand why.
13.	Learn a musical instrument. It may be harder than it was when you were a kid, but you'll be developing a dormant part of your brain.
14.	Travel. When you travel (whether it's to a distant vacation spot or on a different route across town), you're forcing your brain to navigate a new and complex environment.  A study of London taxi drivers found experienced drivers had larger brains because they have to store lots of information about locations and how to navigate there.
15.	Pray. Daily prayer appears to help your immune system.  And people who attend a formal worship service regularly live longer and report happier, healthier lives.
16.	Learn to meditate.  It's important for your brain that you learn to shut out the stresses of everyday life.
17.	Get enough sleep. Studies have shown a link between interrupted sleep and dementia.
18.	Eat more foods containing Omega-3 fatty acids: Salmon, sardines, tuna, ocean trout, mackerel or herring, plus walnuts (which are higher in omega 3s than salmon) and flaxseed. Flaxseed oil, cod liver oil and walnut oil are good sources too.
19.	Eat more fruits and vegetables. Antioxidants in fruits and vegetables mop up some of the damage caused by free radicals, one of the leading killers of          brain cells.
20.	Eat at least one meal a day with family and friends.  You'll slow down, socialize, and research shows you'll eat healthier food than if you ate alone or on the go.

 "I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow human being let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." ~ William Penn

Teaching autistic kids to talk can help

Teaching autistic kids to talk can help

Teaching children with autism to ‘talk things through’ in their heads may help them solve tricky day-to-day tasks & cold increase the chances of them living independent lives when they grow up, British scientists have said. Psychologists who studied adults with autism found that the mechanism for using ‘inner speech’, or talking things through in your head is intact, but they don’t always use it in the same way as typically developing people do. The results suggest teaching autistic children how to develop inner speech skills may help them cope with daily tasks later in life. It also suggests children with autism may do better at school if they’re encouraged to learn their daily timetable verbally rather than using visual plans, which is currently a common approach. Among core features of autism are poor communication skills & difficulty with social

engagement.