Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

cognitive decline

Study with 330 centenarians finds that cognitive decline is not inevitable

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Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per (1890–2005)

Age-Relat­ed Cog­ni­tive Decline May Not Be Inevitable (Web­MD):

It is often assumed that a decrease in mem­o­ry and brain func­tion are inevitable parts of aging, but a new study of cen­te­nar­i­ans sug­gests otherwise.

Inves­ti­ga­tors found that despite the pres­ence of neu­ro­log­i­cal issues gen­er­al­ly asso­ci­at­ed with Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD), many cen­te­nar­i­ans main­tained high lev­els of cog­ni­tive performance.

(Henne Hol­stege, PhD, assis­tant pro­fes­sor at Ams­ter­dam Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter) said her inter­est in research­ing aging and cog­ni­tive health was inspired by the “fas­ci­nat­ing” sto­ry of Hen­drik­je van Andel Schip­per, who died at age 115 in 2005 “com­plete­ly cog­ni­tive­ly healthy.” Her moth­er, who died at age 100, was also cog­ni­tive­ly intact at the end of her life. [Read more…] about Study with 330 cen­te­nar­i­ans finds that cog­ni­tive decline is not inevitable

Study: Artificial intelligence program identifies linguistic markers that predict, with 70% accuracy, who gets Alzheimer’s Disease years later

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Fig. 3. Cook­ie-theft pic­ture descrip­tion task (CTT) exam­ples from the Fram­ing­ham Heart Study, includ­ing an unim­paired sam­ple (a), an impaired sam­ple (b), and an even more impaired sam­ple show­ing sig­nif­i­cant mis­spellings and min­i­mal gram­mat­ic com­plex­i­ty ©. Cred­it: Eyigoz et al (2020)

Alzheimer’s Pre­dic­tion May Be Found in Writ­ing Tests (The New York Times):

… the researchers looked at a group of 80 men and women in their 80s — half had Alzheimer’s and the oth­ers did not. But, sev­en and a half years ear­li­er, all had been cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal. [Read more…] about Study: Arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence pro­gram iden­ti­fies lin­guis­tic mark­ers that pre­dict, with 70% accu­ra­cy, who gets Alzheimer’s Dis­ease years later

Buyer beware: The story of a pricey and “credentialled” program to end Alzheimer’s Disease

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When her hus­band was diag­nosed with ear­ly-stage Alzheimer’s dis­ease in 2015, Eliz­a­beth Pan was dev­as­tat­ed by the lack of options to slow his inevitable decline. But she was encour­aged when she dis­cov­ered the work of a UCLA neu­rol­o­gist, Dr. Dale Bre­desen, who offered a com­pre­hen­sive lifestyle man­age­ment pro­gram to halt or even reverse cog­ni­tive decline in patients like her husband.

[Read more…] about Buy­er beware: The sto­ry of a pricey and “cre­den­tialled” pro­gram to end Alzheimer’s Disease

Next: Analyzing typing speed, speech and sleep patterns to identify cognitive decline, dementia, Parkinson’s, and more

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AI May Help Iden­ti­fy Patients With Ear­ly-Stage Demen­tia (The Wall Street Journal):

Researchers are study­ing whether arti­fi­cial-intel­li­gence tools that ana­lyze things like typ­ing speed, sleep pat­terns and speech can be used to help clin­i­cians bet­ter iden­ti­fy patients with ear­ly-stage demen­tia. [Read more…] about Next: Ana­lyz­ing typ­ing speed, speech and sleep pat­terns to iden­ti­fy cog­ni­tive decline, demen­tia, Parkinson’s, and more

Given cognitive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain training may work best for each person and under which conditions?

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Does ‘Brain Train­ing’ Actu­al­ly Work? (Sci­en­tif­ic American):

If there were an app on your phone that could improve your mem­o­ry, would you try it? Who wouldn’t want a bet­ter mem­o­ry? After all, our rec­ol­lec­tions are frag­ile and can be impaired by dis­eases, injuries, men­tal health con­di­tions and, most acute­ly for all of us, aging. [Read more…] about Giv­en cog­ni­tive strengths and needs are diverse, what brain train­ing may work best for each per­son and under which conditions?

Study: Elders today are in significantly better shape–physically and cognitively–than three decades ago

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Old­er peo­ple have become younger: phys­i­cal and cog­ni­tive func­tion have improved mean­ing­ful­ly in 30 years (Uni­ver­si­ty of Jyväskylä release):

The func­tion­al abil­i­ty of old­er peo­ple is nowa­days bet­ter when it is com­pared to that of peo­ple at the same age three decades ago. This was observed in a study con­duct­ed at the Fac­ul­ty of Sport and Health Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Jyväskylä, Fin­land. The study com­pared the phys­i­cal and cog­ni­tive per­for­mance of peo­ple nowa­days between the ages of 75 and 80 with that of the same-aged peo­ple in the 1990s. [Read more…] about Study: Elders today are in sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter shape–physically and cognitively–than three decades ago