Debate: What is the role of financial advisors and platforms in detecting and addressing cognitive decline among older clients?

Baby Boomers’ Biggest Finan­cial Risk: Cog­ni­tive Decline (The Wall Street Jour­nal): For baby boomers who man­age their own nest eggs, a risk is loom­ing that has noth­ing to do with stock prices or inter­est rates. The risk is cog­ni­tive decline, which can rob them of their judg­ment, often with­out much warn­ing. One big mistake—or a series…

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Debate: Are depression and dementia two sides of the same coin? And, if they are, how to best approach treatment?

Every sev­en sec­onds, some­one in the world is diag­nosed with demen­tia. A typ­i­cal case that I often see in my prac­tice is as fol­lows: A 76-year-old woman has a two-year his­to­ry of pro­gres­sive wors­en­ing of short-term mem­o­ry and cog­ni­tive decline. She can’t recall the names of her grand­chil­dren and is dev­as­tat­ed by her dete­ri­o­rat­ing abilities.…

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Study: High Cognitive Reserve (CR) seen to significantly lower dementia risk even in the presence of high Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) neuropathology

Lifes­pan Cog­ni­tive Reserve—A Secret to Cop­ing With Neu­rode­gen­er­a­tive Pathol­o­gy (JAMA Neu­rol­o­gy edi­to­r­i­al): Giv­en the lim­it­ed suc­cess of ther­a­peu­tic inter­ven­tions for Alzheimer dis­ease, there is increased inter­est in under­stand­ing whether mod­i­fi­able fac­tors can help cope with or post­pone the appear­ance of brain pathol­o­gy. It is esti­mat­ed that about 35% of Alzheimer risk is mod­i­fi­able. Epi­demi­o­log­ic studies…

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Growing research shows how two of the major cancer treatments, radiation and chemotherapy, can lead to long-term cognitive impairment

Mind jum­ble: Under­stand­ing chemo brain (Stan­ford Med­i­cine): Sarah Liu was treat­ed for leukemia as a teenag­er. She attend­ed her high school grad­u­a­tion on a four-hour pass from Lucile Packard Children’s Hos­pi­tal Stan­ford and was bald under her white grad­u­a­tion cap, her arm ban­daged where she’d been receiv­ing chemother­a­py drugs. Liu sur­vived can­cer and the ordeal of…

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Should heads of state and candidates to high office pass a cognitive/ mental fitness test?

Is it fair to ques­tion a pres­i­den­tial candidate’s men­tal fit­ness? (Salon): “My heart sank as he floun­dered his way through his respons­es, fum­bling with his notes, unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly lost for words. He looked tired and bewil­dered,” Ron Rea­gan, the son of Pres­i­dent Ronald Rea­gan, wrote of his father’s per­for­mance dur­ing the first 1984 pres­i­den­tial debate. At…

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