Tracking Health and Wellness Applications of Brain Science

cognitive decline

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

Study: Actual, sustained practice–not mere knowledge–is needed to harness neuroplasticity and improve cognition over time

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Lifestyle improve­ments may lessen cog­ni­tive decline (Wiley):

” … 19 indi­vid­u­als old­er than 65 years of age who were expe­ri­enc­ing cog­ni­tive decline were ran­dom­ized to a con­trol group or an inter­ven­tion group for 8 weeks. The con­trol group received online infor­ma­tion relat­ed to demen­tia and lifestyle risk fac­tors, Mediter­ranean diet, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, and cog­ni­tive engage­ment. Par­tic­i­pants were instruct­ed to imple­ment this infor­ma­tion into their own lifestyles. The inter­ven­tion group received the same online infor­ma­tion, plus active com­po­nents to assist with imple­ment­ing this infor­ma­tion into their lifestyles: dietit­ian ses­sions, an exer­cise phys­i­ol­o­gist ses­sion, and online brain train­ing. [Read more…] about Study: Actu­al, sus­tained practice–not mere knowledge–is need­ed to har­ness neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty and improve cog­ni­tion over time

Anticholinergic drugs found to significantly increase risk of cognitive decline, especially among those with Alzheimer’s Disease biomarkers or genetic predisposition

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Com­mon Class of Drugs Linked to Increased Risk of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (UC San Diego release):

A team of sci­en­tists, led by researchers at Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­i­for­nia San Diego School of Med­i­cine, report that a class of drugs used for a broad array of con­di­tions, from aller­gies and colds to hyper­ten­sion and uri­nary incon­ti­nence, may be asso­ci­at­ed with an increased risk of cog­ni­tive decline, par­tic­u­lar­ly in old­er adults at greater risk for Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD) … cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal study par­tic­i­pants who were tak­ing at least one anti­cholin­er­gic drug at base­line were 47 per­cent more like­ly to devel­op mild cog­ni­tive impair­ment (MCI), often a pre­cur­sor to demen­tia such as AD, while being tracked over a peri­od of up to a decade com­pared to par­tic­i­pants who did not take such drugs. [Read more…] about Anti­cholin­er­gic drugs found to sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase risk of cog­ni­tive decline, espe­cial­ly among those with Alzheimer’s Dis­ease bio­mark­ers or genet­ic predisposition