Keeping your brain healthy and memory sharp
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Keeping your brain healthy and memory sharp
Check the May 10 Patriot ledger for tips on healthy eating for your brain. At a forum in Hingham on Friday, experts discussed how some memory loss and slowdown in thinking are normal with age, but there are easy steps you can take, starting in your 40s, to prevent them. The daylong program was sponsored by the Norwell Visiting Nurse Association at the Hingham Senior Center. "It's not too late to start, even if you're 80," Dr. Nancy Emerson Lombardo told more than 80 people at the program on Alzheimer's disease. "If you already have some memory loss, you can delay it by five years." Lombardo is with Boston University School of Medicine. More than half of those attending the free event were caregivers and people whose family members are affected by Alzheimer's. The others were professionals. Dr. Richard S. Fischer of New England Sinai Hospital in Stoughton said that dementia, or serious memory loss, is not a natural consequence of aging. However, he said, there are normal changes in the brain over time. The most significant is loss of the white matter and this can cause people to have a harder time remembering things, focusing, and can slow down other mental processing. Chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes significantly ncrease the risk of strokes and dementia, he said. Mild cognitive impairment -- small changes -- are more likely to progress to dementia, but in about 20 percent of people, they do not grow worse. Lynn Serper described a new method she developed, based on personal experience, for improving memory and thinking. Joan Garity, a nurse and associate professor at the University of Massachusetts at Boston. described how family members express their grief differently over the changes in someone with Alzheimer's disease. South Shore Elder Services in Braintree helped fund the event.
YouTube | May 9, 2008
