This is an old study completed in 2001 and reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, but one that covered 21 years, a significant period of time. The study, done at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, measured the mental acuity in aging by observing rates of dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, of 469 seniors 75 and older. The focus of the study was to see if any physical or cognitive recreational activities influenced mental acuity. Dancing was the most beneficial.

The cognitive activities included:

• Reading books
• Writing for pleasure
• Doing crossword puzzles
• Playing board games or cards
• Playing musical instruments
• Participating in organized group discussions

Physical activities included:

• Playing tennis or golf
• Swimming
• Bicycling
• Dancing
• Walking for exercise
• Doing housework
• Participating in group exercises

Today, almost everything you read suggests that physical activity plays an important role in maintaining your brain as well as your heart. In this study, however, almost none of the physical activities appeared to offer any protection against dementia. This study specifically looked at whether or not there were ways to reduce the risk of dementia and the only physical activity to offer protection against dementia was frequent dancing!

Here are some of the results:

Dancing frequently – 76% – the greatest risk reduction of any activity studied, cognitive or physical.
Doing crossword puzzles at least four days per week – 47%
Reading – 35%
Bicycling and swimming – 0% reduced risk
Playing golf – 0%

The researchers believe that the dancers are more resistant to the effects of dementia as a result of having greater cognitive reserve and increased complexity of neuronal synapses. Like education, participation in some leisure activities lowers the risk of dementia by improving cognitive reserve. They also said we need to keep as many of those paths active as we can while also generating new paths to maintain the complexity of our neuronal synapses.

More recently, Science Daily reported in 2010 that two recent studies conducted by University of Missouri researchers found that participation in dance-based therapy can improve balance and gait in older adults. Improved functionality among seniors can decrease their risk of falling and reduce costly injuries.

I love line dancing and I attend classes when my schedule permits. This video is a link to one of the sessions and as you can see, not everyone learns at the same pace, but everyone has a lot of fun. Eventually,we all get it. The short Asian woman in green in the back row is 80 years old. What an inspiration. Now that I know the huge benefit of dancing, I will definitely want to continue.

Many people have problems with memory and focus as they age.  Whether the problems are the beginning stages of dementia or just a lack of focus, the following exercise can help to ensure that aging has less power to rob you of precious memories.  In addition, this exercise provides a possible solution for insomnia.

1.  Focus on the events of the day in order from arising in the morning until you go to sleep. The good news is that you will fall asleep long before you reach the end of the day.

2.  During the process, visualize each step of the day.  The process should include all activities, conversations, thoughts and individuals met during the day.  It might be seen as a video recording of the day played back only in your brain.  Focus on details.

3.  Initially, the mind video will be playing in fast forward.  It will be difficult to pick out the small details such as thinking over your today list or looking in the mirror while brushing one’s teeth.  In addition, scenes may jump out of sequence from morning to afternoon and then back to getting out of bed.  However, your goal is to play the video in sequence.

4.  As you continue the exercise several days in a row, you should begin to see some differences.  That which was once a just big chunk of time will begin to develop into fully visualized scenes, which include people, conversations, room decor, signs and thoughts.  Details will become clearer.

5.  It should become a daily challenge to remember more of the day.  You will become more aware of the things you normally would have done without much thought.  Since you know you must recall, your focus changes.  You are using brain cells not previously harnessed.  While the nighttime exercises may be a cure for insomnia, the daytime exercises help you to focus, improve your memory, and lower the chances of developing dementia.

By improving one’s daytime focus and recalling events of the day, it is possible for people to avoid memory loss and dementia.  Additionally, these activities can help with insomnia.

The ideas in this article are adapted from a blog on how to become a better chess player, but certainly seem appropriate for anyone concerned with dementia and having problems with memory and focus.

http://www.mychessblog.com/one-simple-mental-exercise-to-improve-your-mind-power/

Souvenaid, in its second clinical trial, has been proven to help the memory of people who suffer from mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Results of the trial were given at the 4th International Conference on Clinical Trials in Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) by Philip Scheltens, MD, PhD in San Diego in early November. Scheltens is head of the Alzheimer Center at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam.

Souvenaid has a unique mixture of nutrients that work by stimulating the connections between nerves, also known as synapses. Losing these connections is what many experts think is responsible for losing memory in Alzheimer’s patients.  Studies demonstrate that the nutrients in Souvenaid can help grow new synapses in the brain. People taking Souvenaid daily over three months had improved scores on memory tests.

Scheltens is cautiously optimistic about the new findings. More research needs to be done before any conclusions can be drawn, but he thinks it is a step in the right direction.

Souvenir II was completed at  27 centers in six countries in Europe to see if the effects from Souvenir I would last for eight weeks. This study used additional measures to test for recall and also measured brain activity. Of 259 subjects, over 91% finished the study.

Memory was tested at the beginning, at 12 weeks, and at 24 weeks. The composite score was gotten from the Rey Audtiory Verbal Test which tests instant recall, delayed memory, and recognition. The Wechlser Scale which tested verbal association was also used.

Over the 24 weeks, the total scores from the Souvenaid group were much higher than those from the control group. Besides just looking at memory scores, they are attempting to analyze the electroencephalogram and magnetoencephalogram data, which may help figure out the influence  Souveniad has on synapse building in patients with Alzehimer’s disease and dementia.

CTAD is sponsored by the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the European Alzheimer’s Disease Consortium (EADC).

According to Medical News Today, there is a version of Facebook called Facebook Light being developed by SINTEF, the largest research organization in Scandinavia. This will enable the elderly and those with dementia to maintain important social contact. This will enable them to maintain their level of functioning longer, according to research and experience.

According to Tone Oderud, a research scientist at SINTEF, the elderly are being excluded from social media today. The user interface is too advanced for many of them. Oderud is working in a multidisciplinary research team to develop a web-based communications application which is simple enough to enable even people with dementia to use it. The goal is to create a simpler and more secure everyday life for elderly and senile people, their relatives and personnel in the community care services.

Furthermore, research scientists believe that contact through social media can improve the quality of health and life for the great numbers of elderly and those with dementia in our society. At the same time, this can ease the burden on therapists and caregivers.

Testing of other web-based communications systems have already been started. They include a “digital diary” and “scrapbook” with personal photos, newspaper cuttings, and other online information. Oderud says that both of these improved communication between both relatives and the community care services in an informal but valuable way.

The article states that the tests showed that constant, simple contact between relatives and the support services improved everybody’s security and at the same time it reduced the time the caregivers needed to follow up concerned relatives. This holds great potential in all fields of caregiving.

A prototype is currently being tested in the city of Drammen in southern Norway.

Today is Alzheimer’s Action Day and September is World Alzheimer’s Month. Let’s all wear purple and show our support.

You’ve seen the staggering figures. There are already more than 5 million Americans diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and by 2050 as many as 16 million Americans will have the disease. Will you be counted in that figure? Let’s do all we can to take care of ourselves and to support the Alzheimer’s Association to eliminate this awful disease.

According to the 2010 World Alzheimer Report as produced by the Alzheimer’s Disease International, there are approximately 35.6 million dementia cases in the world. In the 2011 Facts & Figures of the Alzheimer’s Association, there are more than 5 million Americans who have Alzheimer’s disease (AD). A new mathematical model created by scientists (for mid-life hypertension, diabetes, smoking, mid-life obesity, depression, physical inactivity and low educational attainment) allowed them to estimate the entire number of Alzheimer’s disease risk attributable to lifestyle risk factors both in the world and US combined.

The researchers reported at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) 2011 that the proportion of worldwide and United States (US) Alzheimer’s cases could be attributed to seven key risk factors:

Altogether, the seven possible modifiable risk factors contributed to 50% of cases of Alzheimer’s worldwide while in the US, the number is 54%. Researchers were similarly surprised that factors such as smoking and physical inactivity contribute to a large quantity of cases compared to cardiovascular disease. However, this also suggests that simple changes in lifestyle such as regular physical activity and stopping smoking could have a drastic impact on the cases of Alzheimer’s disease over time.

According to calculations, a 10% decrease in all the risk factors could halt 1.1 million cases of Alzheimer’s worldwide as well as 184,000 cases in America. Take note that a reduction of 25% in all the risk factors could halt more than three million cases of Alzheimer’s in the world and 492,000 cases in America.

In the study conducted by Deborah Barnes,  Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California – San Francisco and  San Francisco and Mental Health Research PI at the Veterans Affair Medical Center at San Francisco, she reports that what mattered was the common risk factors in the population. She adds that the study’s focus was how the risk factors were common within the population. In the US alone, a third of the population leads a sedentary lifestyle. A large quantity of cases could be attributed to physical inactivity. Smoking similarly contributed to a large number of cases.

According to Barnes, the estimates offer a valuable assumption – that there is a direct relationship between the studied risk factors as well as Alzheimer’s disease. The next step is to do an intervention to discover if changing such risk factors will decrease the risk of Alzheimer’s. The results of the study are to be published on the Lancet Neurology online.

Related articles

• Mathematical Model of Alzheimer’s Disease Risk (aboutalz.com)

A brand new global mathematical model of Alzheimer’s disease risk shows that decreasing the pervasiveness of popular chronic diseases which are lifestyle-based risk factors by as much as 25% could possibly halt 3 million Alzheimer’s disease worldwide as based on the new research shown at the AAIC 2011 (Alzheimer’s Association International Conference) in Paris.

Previous research has seen a slew of potential changeable risk factors for the disease such as physical activity levels, diet and mental stimulation. However, it is unclear if changing such a lifestyle-based risk factors could result in lesser Alzheimer’s disease risk.

Scientists utilized mathematical modeling in order to compute the percentage of the disease that might be attributed to mid-life hypertension, diabetes, smoking, mid-life obesity, low educational attainment, depression as well as physical inactivity. According to researchers, such estimates provide a critical assumption that is yet to be proven (that there is a direct relationship between the examined risk factors as well as Alzheimer’s disease and that changing the risk factors could decrease the risk of Alzheimer’s).

In a study presented at 2011 AAIC, researchers are looking at the characteristics of old adults who kept their cognitive normal function in order to build a “cognitive resilient aging” index. Their objective is to know a group of factors which predict one’s cognitive stability later in life to be used in research trials and clinical practice.

William Thies, PhD, is the Chief Medical and Scientific Officer of the Alzheimer’s Association. According to him, Alzheimer’s disease and lifestyle is a worldwide emergency. We need to increase the discovery of ways to prevent and detect it as soon as possible. He adds that estimated costs of worldwide dementia is US$604 billion. In the US alone, the cost is US$183 billion.

Deaths related to Alzheimer’s disease are increasing. Meanwhile, those from other types of disease are decreasing. Take note that Alzheimer’s is in the top 10 causes of death in the US which could not be cured, prevented or be slowed down.

In the 2010 World Alzheimer Report produced by Alzheimer’s Disease International, dementia is significantly affecting the world’s social care and health system. Plus, dementia costs are about to soar. According to Thies, the Alzheimer’s Association – in behalf of those who are suffering with such a devastating disease as well as their families including the tons of researchers present in the conference – is calling for an unprecedented worldwide collaboration to further understand, treat and diagnose the disease with the objective of eliminating this global epidemic.

Meanwhile, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at San Francisco’s University of California, San Francisco and Mental Health Research PI at the Veterans Affair Medical Center at San Francisco, Deborah Barnes, PhD, MPH, as well as colleagues, utilized mathematical models to compute PARs or “population attributable risks” for possibly modifiable risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease to show the possible impact of risk factor decrease on the prevalence of Alzheimer’s in the US and the world.

PARs are utilized to estimate the number of cases of a specific disease which are possibly attributable to or necessitated by numerous risk factors. PARs usually consider the strength of the connection between the risk factors of the disease as well as the commonality of the risk factors.

They discovered that almost half of Alzheimer’s disease risks are attributed to changeable risk factors. Altogether, seven risk factors (to be discussed in the next post) are seen to contribute to as many as 17 million cases of Alzheimer’s disease and lifestyle worldwide and almost 3 million cases in America.

ICAD 2011

Last month the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) — there has been a name change from the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease (ICAD) — had their annual meeting in Paris, France with more than 5,000 scientists in attendance. Each year we look forward to hearing about the latest advances in detection and cure for Alzheimer’s disease. The good news is that there’s progress toward earlier detection, but as one of the leading causes of death, the bad news is that there is still no cure.

In my next two posts, I will present a study that caught my interest because it has to do with lifestyle changes that we can make to potentially lower our risk for Alzheimer’s disease. In the United States, the researchers found that there are seven potentially modifiable risk factors:

1. Physical inactivity
2. Depression
3. Smoking
4. Mid-life hypertension
5. Mid-life obesity
6. Low education
7. Diabetes

To view a summary of the Alzheimer’s disease research presented, click here.

Next year the conference will be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, July 14 -19, 2012.

Related articles

• Tips for Caregivers of Alzheimer’s Disease Patients (aboutalz.com)
• What Do We Know About Alzheimer’s? (bigthink.com)

Caregivers of Alzheimer’s disease patients have one of the toughest jobs in the world and yet sometimes one of the most rewarding. Stephanie Jewett, RN, MBA, in an article in ezinearticles.com, offers the following tips for caregivers in a home setting.

• Find something they love to do and keep that favorite thing going everyday, i.e. take a walk in the park, watch their favorite television show or read articles in a magazine. Go to the Internet and learn more about their favorite subject.

• Keep life simple; follow a schedule everyday. Eat at particular times, keep hair appointments to one specific day a week, and enjoy a meal out once a week, on the same day.

• Get lots of rest – take a nap if one feels tired, but don’t sleep the day away. Get up at the same time each day, bathe and then have a nutritious breakfast each and every day!

• Go through scrapbooks and old pictures, reminding them of family members — their names, ages, etc.

• Get a dog or a cat so that the patient has some responsibility and company in the home. Pet therapy is one of the best methods known to keep a person happy and healthy.

As a caregiver, your top priority is to take care of yourself so that you will have the strength and stamina to take care of your loved one. So the tips for your Alzheimer’s disease patient apply to you as well. Take good care!

Scientists are looking at a biomaker that may possibly aid in the identification of individuals with mild memory problems who will eventually develop Alzheimer’s disease. The finding, which was published in the online version of Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology. It is believed that the new biomarker may prove to be more accurate compared to already established biomarkers.

According to the study author Robert Perneczky, MD, of the Technical University Munich in Germany, identifying individuals who will have Alzheimer’s disease earlier will be an important development. Once treatments that can be used for the prevention of the disease are available, it will become easier to treat and even prevent memory loss.

Fifty eight people with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) participated in the study. It is estimated that as many as 15% of the people who have MCI will develop Alzheimer’s every year.

Cerebrospinal fluid was taken from each participant and tested for certain proteins. Participants were then studied for about three years. Of the participants, 21 developed Alzheimer’s, 27 remained with MCI while 8 people regained normal cognitive skills. Researchers discovered that participants who later developed Alzheimer’s had significantly high levels of sAPPβ or soluble amyloid precursor protein beta in their cerebrospinal fluid.

Based on their findings, the researchers discovered that the person’s age, a protein called tau, and sAPPβ were excellent predictors of future cases of Alzheimer’s. Using these factors as a basis, it was easier to predict if an individual ran the risk of developing the disease. The accuracy for this prediction is pegged at about 80%.

A protein amyloid known as Aβ1-42 or amyloid beta1-42 was once considered one of the biomarkers significant to Alzheimer’s disease. However, it was not used as one of the predictive factors in the study.

The results, Perneczky said, suggest that sAPPβ could be useful as a biomarker and that it may even be better than Aβ1-42 for use in diagnosing Alzheimer’s earlier. The reason for this may be that Aβ1-42 can only indicate events at a later stage – events that already point to the accumulation of amyloid plaques in the brain. Since sAPPβ can be used as a critical initial step in determining if the disease will develop, it is likely to provide a more accurate indication on important pathological events.