Word: dementias
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...generations. Though the latest finding from the University of New South Wales falls into the second category, that doesn't diminish its significance. Having pored over thousands of pages of data, researchers are now all but convinced that by exercising their brains people can substantially reduce their risk of dementia. Ideally, regular intellectual stimulation would begin early in life and continue through the twilight years. But there's mounting evidence that a late-life surge in mental activity - taking up board games, crosswords, arts and craft - can help stave off the ravages of this dreadful illness...
...Scientists have conducted several hundred studies of the theory that brain reserve - the effect of formal education and mentally challenging work and leisure pursuits - may, through some mechanism not fully understood, protect people against dementia. Aware that the studies had tossed up contradictory results, University of N.S.W. neuroscientist Michael Valenzuela and colleague Perminder Sachdev last year conducted the first systematic review of research on brain reserve. Having integrated data from 22 studies of possible links between people's behavior and their subsequent brain health, the pair bring down their verdict in a paper about to be published in British journal...
...Prevention is crucial with dementia, as medicines do no more than alleviate the symptoms for the 200,000 sufferers in Australia and New Zealand. The most common type of dementia, Alzheimer's Disease, is characterized by the spread of sticky plaques and clumps of tangled fiber that disrupt communication between brain cells. Gradually robbing people of their memory, personality and eventually all cognitive function, it typically kills within 5 to 10 years. Apart from the distress it causes sufferers and their loved ones, Alzheimer's is extremely costly: in Australia it drains an estimated $A3 billion a year from...
...While most experts presume that aerobic exercise protects people from dementia by maintaining good blood flow to the brain, how mental exercise could help is still a puzzle. "There are a lot of theories," says Valenzuela, "but it's very difficult to pinpoint a single neurobiological characteristic that distinguishes people with high brain reserve from those with low brain reserve. I think that's been part of the problem: we've been looking for a magic bullet." Instead, Valenzuela postulates that mental activity alters the central nervous system in different ways at various levels. Research on mice, he says, shows...
...what it was, but you manage information and parse meanings that were entirely beyond you when you were younger. What's more, your temperament changes to suit those new skills, growing more comfortable with ambiguity and less susceptible to frustration or irritation. Although inflexibility, confusion and even later-life dementia are very real problems, for many people the aging process not only does not batter the brain, it actually makes it better...