Tag Archives: Dementia

Aging, Health, Journals, Medicine, Previews, Reviews

Aging: Healthy Longevity Journal – December 2022

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December 2022 issue:

Long COVID and older people

Long COVID is a poorly understood condition, with a wide spectrum of effects on multiple body systems and variable presentation in different individuals. Long COVID is of particular concern among older people (ie, aged 65 years or older), who are at greater risk than younger people of persisting symptoms associated with COVID-19. In addition, COVID-19 might trigger or exacerbate chronic conditions that occur commonly in older people, such as cardiovascular diseases, respiratory diseases, neurodegenerative conditions, and functional decline.

Quantum Healthy Longevity for healthy people, planet, and growth

It is widely thought that lifespans are increasing globally. However, life expectancy has begun to stagnate in the UK, and is falling in more than 50 countries including the USA. Lifespan stagnation or decrease is a consequence of socioeconomic inequalities, lifestyle factors, and the COVID-19 pandemic. In the UK, the National Health Service spends vast sums treating chronic diseases; by some estimates, 40% of its costs go to treating preventable conditions.

Is age-related hearing loss a potentially modifiable risk factor for dementia?

The relationship of measures of age-related hearing loss such as pure-tone autiometry might not be as consistently associated with risk of dementia as previous studies have suggested. Peripheral age-related hearing loss has been posited as a midlife risk factor for dementia.

Aging, Health, Medicine, Research, Videos

Aging: How Biomarkers Help Diagnose Dementia

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Biomarkers are measurable indicators of what’s happening in your body. They can be found in blood, other body fluids, organs, and tissues, and can be used to track healthy processes, disease progression, or even responses to a medication. Biomarkers are an important part of dementia research.

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Aging, Diet & Nutrition, Health, Medicine, Studies

Dementia Study: A High-Fiber Diet May Lower Risk

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Fiber is known for keeping your digestive system healthy and lowering cholesterol levels. Now, study findings suggest it also may protect the brain from dementia.

The study involved approximately 3,700 healthy adults, ages 40 to 64, who completed routine dietary surveys for 16 years. Researchers then monitored the participants for two decades to see which ones developed dementia. The study revealed that people who consumed the most daily fiber had the lowest rates of dementia. The reverse also was true — those who ate the least fiber had the highest rates. Specifically, the low-risk group consumed an average of 20 grams daily, while those with the highest risk averaged only 8 grams. (The USDA recommends that men over age 50 eat 30 grams of fiber daily.)

Aging, Exercise, Health, Research, Reviews, Studies

Brain Health: The Benefits Of Endurance Exercise

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Aging, Health, Medicine, Reviews, Studies

Living With Hypertension: Reduced Brain Size And Increased Dementia Risks

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Health, Reviews, Science, Videos

Health: Dementia Set To Increase 40% By 2030 (WHO)

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More than 55 million people worldwide are living with dementia, a neurological disorder that robs them of their memory and costs the world $1.3 trillion a year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.

Interviews, Movies, Old Age, Videos

Interview: Director-Actor Viggo Mortensen On His Film “Falling” & Dementia

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Viggo Mortensen adds to his résumé of actor, poet, painter, and musician, with the release of FALLING, his 2020 directorial debut about the legacy of dementia and family bonds. In this exclusive interview with NOWNESS creative director Bunny Kinney, Mortensen speaks about the personal experiences that inspired his latest film.

Still not seen FALLING? Rent it via https://www.nowness.com/story/falling…

FALLING is a powerful drama about a father and son relationship on the brink of collapse. Hollywood giant Lance Henriksen (Alien, The Terminator) plays Willis, a homophobic farmer who is forced to live with his gay son. Willis has early-stage dementia, which makes running the farm on his own increasingly difficult. So John (Viggo Mortensen) brings him to stay at his California home so that he and his sister Sarah (Laura Linney) might help him find a place closer to the family. Unfortunately, their best intentions ultimately run up against Willis’ adamant refusal to change his way of life.

Viggo Mortensen is one of the most in-demand actors of his generation. After winning hearts and minds with his valiant portrayal of Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he has received numerous Oscar and BAFTA nominations for his performances in Green Book, Captain Fantastic, and Eastern Promises, to name a few. Shot and edited by Antonio Rui Ribeiro Produced by Modern Films

Aging, Health, Medicine, Studies

Infographic: ’12 Dementia Risk Factors’ (The Lancet)

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Executive summary

The number of older people, including those living with dementia, is rising, as younger age mortality declines. However, the age-specific incidence of dementia has fallen in many countries, probably because of improvements in education, nutrition, health care, and lifestyle changes.

Overall, a growing body of evidence supports the nine potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia modelled by the 2017 Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention, and care: less education, hypertension, hearing impairment, smoking, obesity, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes, and low social contact.

We now add three more risk factors for dementia with newer, convincing evidence. These factors are excessive alcohol consumption, traumatic brain injury, and air pollution. We have completed new reviews and meta-analyses and incorporated these into an updated 12 risk factor life-course model of dementia prevention. Together the 12 modifiable risk factors account for around 40% of worldwide dementias, which consequently could theoretically be prevented or delayed.

The potential for prevention is high and might be higher in low-income and middle-income countries (LMIC) where more dementias occur. Our new life-course model and evidence synthesis has paramount worldwide policy implications. It is never too early and never too late in the life course for dementia prevention. Early-life (younger than 45 years) risks, such as less education, affect cognitive reserve; midlife (45–65 years), and later-life (older than 65 years) risk factors influence reserve and triggering of neuropathological developments.

Culture, poverty, and inequality are key drivers of the need for change. Individuals who are most deprived need these changes the most and will derive the highest benefit.

Read full Dementia Study and Report

Health, Neuroscience, Studies

Brain Research: 40% Of Dementia Cases Prevented With Lifestyle Changes

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Dementia Risk Reduced by Lifestyle factors - USC Keck Medicine Infographic

“We are learning that tactics to avoid dementia begin early and continue throughout life, so it’s never too early or too late to take action,” says commission member and AAIC presenter Lon Schneider, MD, co-director of the USC Alzheimer Disease Research Center‘s clinical core and professor of psychiatry and the behavioral sciences and neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

LOS ANGELES — Modifying 12 risk factors over a lifetime could delay or prevent 40% of dementia cases, according to an updated report by the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention and care presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC 2020).

Twenty-eight world-leading dementia experts added three new risk factors in the new report — excessive alcohol intake and head injury in mid-life and air pollution in later life. These are in addition to nine factors previously identified by the commission in 2017: less education early in life; mid-life hearing loss, hypertension and obesity; and smoking, depression, social isolation, physical inactivity and diabetes later in life (65 and up).

Schneider and commission members recommend that policymakers and individuals adopt the following interventions:

  • Aim to maintain systolic blood pressure of 130 mm Hg or less from the age of 40.
  • Encourage use of hearing aids for hearing loss and reduce hearing loss by protecting ears from high noise levels.
  • Reduce exposure to air pollution and second-hand tobacco smoke.
  • Prevent head injury (particularly by targeting high-risk occupations).
  • Limit alcohol intake to no more than 21 units per week (one unit of alcohol equals 10 ml or 8 g pure alcohol).
  • Stop smoking and support others to stop smoking.
  • Provide all children with primary and secondary education.
  • Lead an active life into mid-life and possibly later life.
  • Reduce obesity and the linked condition of diabetes.

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