Update: 35% of worldwide dementia cases could be prevented by modifying these 9 modifiable risk factors

Time for Sharp­Brains’ July e‑newsletter, fea­tur­ing fas­ci­nat­ing sci­en­tif­ic find­ings, emerg­ing brain health prac­tices and insights…and some fun teasers. New research Let’s start with the key take-aways from a new and very insight­ful evi­dence review which found nine mod­i­fi­able risk fac­tors for demen­tia — account­ing for 35% of all cas­es: — Edu­ca­tion by age 15 (dur­ing ear­ly life) —…

Read More

Report: 35% of worldwide dementia cases could be prevented by modifying these 9 modifiable risk factors

The Lancet Com­mis­sion: One Third of Demen­tia May Be Pre­ventable (Lancet report release): “Today’s find­ings are extreme­ly hope­ful,” said Maria Car­ril­lo, PhD, chief sci­ence offi­cer at the Alzheimer’s Asso­ci­a­tion. “At an indi­vid­ual lev­el, many peo­ple have the poten­tial to reduce their risk of cog­ni­tive decline, and per­haps demen­tia, through sim­ple, health­ful behav­ior changes. At a…

Read More

Time is over for “one size fits all” dementia treatments. Next: How to best integrate non-pharmacologic and pharmacologic approaches

. Time to ‘just say no’ to behav­ior-calm­ing drugs for Alzheimer patients? Experts say yes (Med­ical Xpress): “Doc­tors write mil­lions of pre­scrip­tions a year for drugs to calm the behav­ior of peo­ple with Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er types of demen­tia. But non-drug approach­es actu­al­ly work bet­ter, and car­ry far few­er risks, experts con­clude in a…

Read More

Let’s Define Brain Fitness and Physical Fitness

Bev­er­ly San­born, Vice Pres­i­dent of Pro­gram Devel­op­ment at Bel­mont Senior Liv­ing and sched­uled 2011 Sharp­Brains Sum­mit Speak­er, could not final­ly speak at the Sum­mit (she was very well replaced by col­league Jeff DeBevec), but for­tu­nate­ly we can share her thought­ful answers to the fol­low­ing four crit­i­cal ques­tions. 1. How would you define “brain fit­ness” vs. “phys­i­cal fitness”?…

Read More