subject: Does Brain Stimulation Really Increase The Rate Of Decline For Alzheimer's? [print this page] "Doing puzzles could speed up dementia" "Doing puzzles could speed up dementia"
"Brain Exercise may worsen existing Alzheimer's"
"Why you shouldn't play mentally stimulating games"
These are recent headlines after results came out from a new study. These headlines distorted the study statistics quite a bit.
Published in Neurology by Dr. Wilson from the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, this new study showed that individuals who had a mentally or cognitively stimulating life prior to the onset of Alzheimer's actually showed a faster decline than those who had been less cognitively active.
YIKES! This spread a wave of panic among those people who have been consciously staying cognitively active in order to avoid getting Alzheimer's.
We've been told for years that keeping the mind active and stimulated with new activities was what was needed to help keep our brain optimized.
SO, what is the story? Is this really true?
You have to read the details of the study to understand how this can be possible and what it means to all of us who are concerned about our brain health.
Here is a quote from the study:
"This means that, after diagnosis with moderate impairment, compared to less cognitively active people they will decline faster. Indeed the mean rate of cognitive decline per year for people in the Alzheimer group increased by 42% for each additional point on the cognitive activity scale."
That sounds pretty clear that it's true that it is a problem for people to be cognitively active-or IS it really clear?
Let's look into more of the details of the situation for these Alzheimer's patients. First of all, those with only mild cognitive impairment did not show this effect of increased decline.
What happens is that having the reserve from the cognitive stimulation delays the onset of the disease. Even if Alzheimer's is developing in the brain, the symptoms will not show until later.
Unfortunately, even cognitively active people who are diagnosed with dementia will reach a threshold of pathology where it would be difficult to continue normal function. By the time these cognitively active people are diagnosed with dementia, they have more pathology in the brain than those diagnosed who were less cognitively active.
If you were to develop this fatal disease and knew you would die in-for example-10 years, which of these scenarios would you prefer?
Slow rate of cognitive decline over the 10 years, limiting the quality of your life more and more.
Living symptom free for 9 years and then having rapid decline in your 10th year, the end stage of the illness, ending in death.
There's no question in my mind what I would prefer. My goal is to be living fully for as many years as possible, independent and productive. Naturally, my preference would be not to have the disease at all, but this may not be a choice.
So my plan is to do every single thing I can do to optimize my brain health, including brain stimulation and as much cognitive activity as possible!
