Education & Lifelong Learning

Study finds sharp decrease (nearly one-third) in the prevalence of dementia among those 65+ in the United States

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Demen­tia plum­mets by near­ly one-third among U.S. seniors, RAND says (UPI):

The preva­lence of demen­tia in the Unit­ed States is declin­ing among peo­ple over age 65, falling dra­mat­i­cal­ly from 2000 to 2016, a RAND Corp. study says.

Nation­wide, the age-adjust­ed preva­lence of demen­tia fell to 8.5% of peo­ple over age 65 in 2016, down by near­ly one-third from 12.2% of peo­ple over age 65 in 2000, accord­ing to the researchers. [Read more…] about Study finds sharp decrease (near­ly one-third) in the preva­lence of demen­tia among those 65+ in the Unit­ed States

Study: Building cognitive reserve helps delay memory and thinking decline regardless of genetic or childhood markers

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Source: UAB researcher David Vance

Build­ing cog­ni­tive reserve could pro­tect against mem­o­ry and think­ing decline, even with low child­hood cog­ni­tion scores (Alzheimer’s Research UK):

New research sug­gests that peo­ple who devel­op high ‘cog­ni­tive reserve’ by the time they reach 69 years old may reduce their like­li­hood of mem­o­ry and think­ing decline, even with low child­hood cog­ni­tive abil­i­ties. The study was pub­lished today in Neu­rol­o­gy, the med­ical jour­nal of the Amer­i­can Acad­e­my of Neu­rol­o­gy. [Read more…] about Study: Build­ing cog­ni­tive reserve helps delay mem­o­ry and think­ing decline regard­less of genet­ic or child­hood markers

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

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Fig­ure 2. Inci­dence Rates of Demen­tia per 1000 Per­son-Years by Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) Ter­tile and Brain Pathol­o­gy; adjust­ed for age, sex, smok­ing, alco­hol con­sump­tion, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, body mass index, heart dis­ease, hyper­ten­sion, cere­brovas­cu­lar dis­ease, dia­betes, and apolipopro­tein E e4. AD indi­cates Alzheimer dis­ease. Source: Xu H et al (2020)

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 have shown that life­time expo­sures to high­er edu­ca­tion, high­er occu­pa­tion­al attain­ment, and cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties are asso­ci­at­ed with reduced risk of Alzheimer demen­tia. Autop­sy stud­ies have shown interindi­vid­ual dif­fer­ences in the amount of brain pathol­o­gy peo­ple can tol­er­ate before man­i­fest­ing cog­ni­tive impair­ments, and autop­sied brains of about one-third of indi­vid­u­als who are cog­ni­tive­ly nor­mal meet neu­ropatho­log­i­cal cri­te­ria for Alzheimer dis­ease. [Read more…] about Study: High Cog­ni­tive Reserve (CR) seen to sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er demen­tia risk even in the pres­ence of high Alzheimer’s Dis­ease (AD) neuropathology

Helping shape the future of lifelong learning via SEK Education Group

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This week, as many stu­dents around the globe final­ly go back to school to meet their peers and teach­ers in per­son for the first time since March, it is an hon­or to announce that our very own Álvaro Fer­nán­dez Ibáñez has joined the Inter­na­tion­al Advi­so­ry Board of SEK Edu­ca­tion Group, which runs 9 bilin­gual IB schools, and a major uni­ver­si­ty, in Spain, France, Ire­land and Qatar.

He (and us) look for­ward to see­ing over 9,000 stu­dents from 70 dif­fer­ent nation­al­i­ties plus their many teach­ers and admin­is­tra­tors, fur­ther devel­op their unique brains and minds in years ahead! [Read more…] about Help­ing shape the future of life­long learn­ing via SEK Edu­ca­tion Group

Coming soon: Virtual World Tour at the frontier of applied neuroplasticity, education and learning difficulties

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Heads-up about Bar­bara Arrow­smith-Young’s upcom­ing Vir­tu­al World Tour to dis­cuss her expe­ri­ence, her book and her schools at the fron­tier of applied neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, edu­ca­tion and help­ing kids with learn­ing difficulties.

Pre­sen­ta­tions are not­ed in EDT time (Toron­to, Cana­da). Please use this time zone con­vert­er to see the time in your region. Learn more and Reg­is­ter HERE.

  • Sep­tem­ber 14th 2020, 6.00 AM EDT and 8.00 PM EDT
  • Octo­ber 20th 2020, 7.00 AM EDT and 8.00 PM EDT
  • Novem­ber 12th 2020, 7.00 AM EDT and 8.00 PM EDT

Talk descrip­tion: [Read more…] about Com­ing soon: Vir­tu­al World Tour at the fron­tier of applied neu­ro­plas­tic­i­ty, edu­ca­tion and learn­ing difficulties

Systematic review finds ten lifestyle factors that clearly impact the probability of developing Alzheimer’s disease (AD)

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Although there’s still no cure, researchers are con­tin­u­ing to devel­op a bet­ter under­stand­ing of what increas­es a person’s risk of devel­op­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease. A recent study that looked at 396 stud­ies has even been able to iden­ti­fy ten risk fac­tors that are shown to increase the like­li­hood of devel­op­ing the disease.

Here are the fac­tors researchers iden­ti­fied – and why they’re asso­ci­at­ed with a high­er risk.

1. Lower education level

A low­er edu­ca­tion lev­el is asso­ci­at­ed with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s dis­ease. Pre­vi­ous evi­dence shows the longer you spend in edu­ca­tion, the low­er your risk of devel­op­ing demen­tia. Research look­ing at the brains of peo­ple from dif­fer­ent edu­ca­tion­al back­grounds also showed that peo­ple who were more edu­cat­ed had heav­ier brains. As you lose one third of your brain weight because of demen­tia, a heav­ier brain may make you more resilient. [Read more…] about Sys­tem­at­ic review finds ten lifestyle fac­tors that clear­ly impact the prob­a­bil­i­ty of devel­op­ing Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD)