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Alzheimer’s: Reduce Your Risk

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Lifestyle Factors Can Reduce Your RIsk

Exercising one's body and brain helps stave off dementia in older adults, researchers report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

​People who delay their retirement are less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia than those who leave their jobs at age 60, a 2013 study shows. In the study, which followed more than 429,000 former workers in France, the likelihood of getting dementia seemed to decline for each additional year they worked.

It may not actually be working to an older age, but it’s staying active that makes the difference. Things that promote mental stimulation, lifelong learning – whether that’s taking a class, reading a book or reading a newspaper every day — whatever that may mean to you to keep your brain active is the advice from the Alzheimer’s Association.

5 Changes that Alzheimer’s research has shown that can help avoid or delay getting this disease

  1.  Get more sleep and make sure that your quality of sleep is better. Talk with your physician if you either can’t sleep longer or are not sleeping well.
  2. 2Use/challenge your brain. Those that work well past their retirement age, continue their education, work crossword puzzles have a lower risk of dementia.
  3. Exercise regularly. Physical activity helps with a number of problems including diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure; all risk factors for memory impairment later in life.
  4. Try to eliminate stress as much as possible. Those with prolonged stress have accelerated cognitive decline one study found.
  5. Improve your diet. Diets high in fruits and vegetables and lower in fat and sugar have proved to lower the risk of dementia later in life.

8 Things That Increase Your Risk Of Alzheimer's

According to Scientific American

These risk factors include:

  1. Older age. This is the strongest risk factor for Alzheimer's, and the likelihood of developing the disease doubles every five years beginning at age 65. After age 95, the risk reaches nearly 50 percent.
  2. Female gender. Researchers are currently looking at the role decreased levels of estrogen after menopause and rising rates of vascular disease (possibly attributable to decreased estrogen) play.
  3. Genetics. This includes predispositions and genetic mutations.
  4. Lipoprotein A. Research has found that elevated levels of this type of very low-density cholesterol increased the risk of Alzheimer's in certain individuals.
  5. Cardiovascular disease. Numerous risk factors for cardiovascular disease also appear to be risk factors for Alzheimer's disease, including elevated LDL cholesterol levels, low HDL cholesterol levels, high blood pressure, smoking, overconsumption of unhealthy fats, excess body weight, lack of exercise and type 2 diabetes.
  6. Down syndrome. The genetic abnormality responsible for Down syndrome is located on chromosome 21, which can also carry an Alzheimer's precursor gene.
  7. Head injury. A moderate head injury--a loss of consciousness for more than 30 minutes--is associated with two times greater risk of developing the disease, and a severe head injury--or loss of consciousness for more than 24 hours--is associated with 4.5 times greater risk.
  8. Depression. Research has found that a history of depression doubled a person's risk of developing Alzheimer's.

What you eat can affect the chances of developing Alzheimer’s

A new study by researchers at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago shows a diet plan they developed may reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease by as much as 53 percent.

The study, published in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia, looked at more than 900 people between the ages of 58 and 98 who filled out food questionnaires and underwent repeated neurological testing. It found participants whose diets most closely followed the MIND diet recommendations had a level of cognitive function the equivalent of a person 7.5 years younger.

The MIND diet breaks its recommendations down into 10 "brain healthy food groups" a person should eat and five "unhealthy food groups" to avoid.

It combines many elements of two other popular nutrition plans which have been proven to benefit heart health: the Mediterranean Diet and the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet. For a list of foods that fight Alzheimer's and those to be avoided check out this site. 

Living a healthy life

Other research has suggested that healthful living might help reduce the risk of developing the disease. These findings should be regarded as a warning: If you have Alzheimer's in the family, you have to take precautions, experts point out.
​
Staying mentally active by engaging in activities that challenge and stimulate the mind may be a key factor in maintaining memory and other cognitive skills. A study of 469 healthy people over age 75, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that those who frequently engaged in leisure activities such as reading, playing board games, playing a musical instrument, or dancing were less likely to have developed dementia five or more years later.

Now a study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (Volume 57, page 594) suggests that adults without memory impairment can sharpen their cognitive skills by using a computer-based cognitive training program. 

The study examined the commercially available Brain Fitness Program, which consists of six computer-based audio exercises. Study participants were 487 adults age 65 and over who had no diagnosed cognitive impairment. Participants were randomized to spend one hour per day, five days per week, for eight weeks either training on the Brain Fitness Program or watching educational DVDs and then completing quizzes about the material.


Margaret Gatz, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, says lifestyle factors, such as maintaining social ties, might in some cases delay or prevent the disease even in people who have a strong family history of the disease.

Gatz and her colleagues studied nearly 12,000 pairs of identical and fraternal twins from Sweden. The team gave all of the twins, who were ages 65 and older, a battery of tests that identify memory loss, cognitive problems and other signs of Alzheimer's.

The team found 392 pairs of twins in which one or both had Alzheimer's. The team found that Alzheimer's disease appears highly heritable in most cases. But that does not automatically mean Alzheimer's — it just means that people with a family history of the disease are at greater risk, Gatz says. Even identical twins, who share the same genetic material, do not always get the disease in lock step, she says. Some identical twins did not have the disease despite the fact that their twins did.

Gatz says these identical twins, which were healthy at the end of the study, might never get the disease, or they might develop it much later in life. The study's findings were published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Although genes might play a bigger role than lifestyle choices in the development of the disease, experts such as Thomas Perls, a geriatrician at the Boston University School of Medicine, says late-onset Alzheimer's is a complex disease probably caused by an array of factors. That means even people with a strong history of the disease might be able to reduce their risk or delay the onset of the disease so they develop it at age 85 and not at 70, he says.

“You can't do anything about your family history,” says William Thies, Vice President of Medical and Scientific Affairs for the Chicago-based Alzheimer's Association. But Thies and Perls say people can do a lot to cut their risk by exercising, eating fruits and vegetables and staying connected to friends and family.

Working Longer 

According to an article in the New York Times by Gina Kolata research has shown that taking early retirement may retire memory too.

The two economists who conducted the research call their paper “Mental Retirement,” and their argument has intrigued behavioral researchers. Data from the United States, England and 11 other European countries suggest that the earlier people retire, the more quickly their memories decline.

The implication, the economists and others say, is that there really seems to be something to the “use it or lose it” notion — if people want to preserve their memories and reasoning abilities, they may have to keep active.

“It’s incredibly interesting and exciting,” said Laura L. Carstensen, director of the Center on Longevity at Stanford University. “It suggests that work actually provides an important component of the environment that keeps people functioning optimally.”

6 Classic Mind Games That Help In Keeping a Healthy Memory

As people age, exercising the brain to stay fresh and alert is just as important as physical exercise. Brain games are a fun way to stay sharp as one ages and are a great way to encourage families to come together and support one another. Brain games played with family members or friends are a great way to strengthen cognitive skills and improve memory.

Here are a few classic games you can choose from:
  1. Chess – Chess is well known for its ability to teach people how to solve problems and stay a few steps ahead cognitively. To play, each person must try to get Checkmate. To do this requires forward thinking and planning. It also requires problem-solving skills. Playing chess must be done in pairs so seniors can spend time together with their friends and family as they work to sharpen their senses.
  2. Crossword Puzzles – Crossword puzzles give clues about a specific word. Players must then determine what the word is and fit it in exactly with their puzzle. For seniors, thinking carefully about word meanings, abbreviations and specific names or places can help keep the brain sharp. Memory improves because the brain is constantly working to try to come up with words that were once easy to grab on to, sharpening the brain.
  3. Sudoku – Sudoku is similar to a Crossword puzzle but involves number patterns instead of words and clues. In this puzzle, seniors can put together strings of numbers where no two numbers are in the same horizontal or vertical lines, and also where no two numbers repeat in the same box. This game requires seeing the bigger picture, as well as the smaller picture making it ideal for keeping senior brains sharp.
  4. Boggle – In this game, players must identify words from a group of letters. This requires seniors to notice patterns and find words that exist in their daily vocabulary. The game is timed to push fast thinking, which can help improve a senior’s ability to find answers and solve problems quickly.
  5. Concentration – Perhaps there is no better memory game than Concentration. This game requires that players identify two of the same picture, word or number after memorizing a figure of numbers at the beginning of the game. When playing this game, seniors must have exceptional memory skills to remember where each piece is. The more seniors play, the sharper their memory may become.
  6. Entangled Pieces - Whether looking at entangled pieces or shapes on a piece of paper or in a physical sense through metal intertwined figures, trying to detangle a complex mess of shapes requires a senior to work hard at navigating shapes and patterns. When a senior focuses on this for an extended period of time, their memory and cognitive function improves.
This information provided, in part, by Krisca Te who works with Open Colleges, Australia's leading provider of TAFE courses equivalent and aged care training.
 
Medical Disclaimer: The information above is not intended to substitute for the advice of a physician or healthcare professional.

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