Getting rid of dementia

Interesting to hear that demency has now been put on the international political agenda, with the G8 declaring their support to commit resources, share information and to foster international collaboration.

With a large proportion of the population getting older, and with people’s life expectancy going into the 90s and 100’s, dementia is one of societies biggest problems as well as enormous cost factors.

A couple of facts about dementia in the USA:

• 1 in 3 seniors dies with Alzheimer’s or another dementia

• Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth-leading cause of death

• In 2012, 15.4 million caregivers provided an estimated 17.5 billion hours of unpaid care, valued at more than $216 billion

• Women have a higher chance of suffering from dementia than men

• One in nine people aged 65 and older have Alzheimer’s disease

• Every 68 seconds, someone in the United States develops Alzheimer’s.

• By mid-century, someone in the United States will develop the disease every 33 seconds

It should be noted that the above are the official statistics for the US. According to an expert, probably only half of the people in the UK with dementia get a diagnose. So the problem could be a lot worse.

Interesting to note that in 1978 the BBC had a radio report about it. In those days they reported that 1 of 10 people suffered from dementia. It’s taken over 30 years to get it on the international agenda as a major disease to fight against.

Hopefully in the next 12 years we will have a pill to keep us going, but before that we can start to do something about it for ourselves.

Researchers have detected behavioural patterns associated with dementia. What has been discovered is that what is good for the heart is probably also good for your brain.

Things which influence and can reduce dementia are:

• Physical exercise i.e. being fit, sport, ensuring
• Good education in the early years (and perhaps constant learning)
• No smoking
• Low saturated fat, rich in vegetables, vegetable-based oils diet
• Reduced blood pressure, hypertension
• Keep mentally and social active
• No sports with knocks to the head like boxing

It would be interesting to see if regular playing of musical instruments can also prevent the disease (on a brain scan you can see that vast areas of the cortex are filled with blood when playing the piano)

Reference: http://www.alz.org/downloads/facts_figures_2013.pdf