Is It Dementia?
Dementia disproportionately affects wealthy nations due to longevity and unhealthy lifestyles. Spot the signs of memory loss, aphasia, apraxia, and agnosia.
Spot The Signs (Because None Of Us Are Immune)
Dementia affects increasingly many people, and unlike a lot of diseases, it disproportionately affects people in wealthy industrialized nations.
There are two main reasons for this:
- Longevity (in poorer countries, more people die of other things sooner; can’t get age-related cognitive decline if you don’t age)
- Lifestyle (in the age of convenience, it has never been easier to live an unhealthy lifestyle)
The former is obviously no bad thing for those of us lucky enough to be in wealthier countries (though even in such places, good healthcare access is of course sadly not a given for all).
The latter, however, is less systemic and more epidemic. But it does cut both ways:
- An unhealthy lifestyle is much easier here, yes
- A healthier lifestyle is much easier here, too!
This then comes down to two factors in turn:
- Information: knowing about dementia, what things lead to it, what to look out for, what to do
- Motivation: priorities, and how much attention we choose to give this matter
So, let’s get some information, and then give it our attention!
More than just memory
It’s easy to focus on memory loss, but the four key disabilities directly caused by dementia (each person may not get all four), can be remembered by the mnemonic: “AAAA!”
No, somebody didn’t just murder your writer. It’s:
- Amnesia: memory loss, in one or more of its many forms
- e.g. short term memory loss, and/or inability to make new memories
- Aphasia: loss of ability to express oneself, and/or understand what is expressed
- e.g. “More people have been to Berlin than I have”
- Or even less communication-friendly, Broca’s (Expressive) Aphasia and Wernicke’s (Receptive) Aphasia
- Apraxia: loss of ability to do things, through no obvious physical disability
- e.g. staring at the bathroom mirror wondering how to brush one’s teeth
- Agnosia: loss of ability to recognize things
- e.g. prosopagnosia, also called face-blindness.
If any of those seem worryingly familiar, be aware that while yes, it could be a red flag, what’s most important is patterns of these things.
Another difference between having a momentary brainlapse and having dementia might be, for example, the difference between forgetting your keys, and forgetting what keys do or how to use one.
That said, some are neurological deficits that may show up quite unrelated to dementia, including most of those given as examples above. So if you have just one, then that’s probably worthy of note, but probably not dementia.
Writer’s anecdote: I have had prosopagnosia all my life. To give an example of what that is like and how it’s rather more than just “bad with faces”…
Recently I saw my neighbor, and I could tell something was wrong with her face, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Then some moments later, I realized I had mistaken her hat for her face. It was a large beanie with a panda design on it, and that was facelike enough for me to find myself looking at the wrong face.
Subjective memory matters as much as objective
Objective memory tests are great indicators of potential cognitive decline (or improvement!), but even a subjective idea of having memory problems, that one’s memory is “not as good as it used to be”, can be an important indicator too:
Subjective memory may be marker for cognitive decline
And more recently:
If your memory feels like it’s not what it once was, it could point to a future dementia risk
If you’d like an objective test of memory and other cognitive impairments, here’s the industry’s gold standard test (it’s free):
SAGE: A Test to Detect Signs of Alzheimer’s and Dementia
(The Self-Administered Gerocognitive Exam (SAGE) is designed to detect early signs of cognitive, memory or thinking impairments)
There are things that can look like dementia that aren’t
A person with dementia may be unable to recognize their partner, but hey, this writer knows that feeling very well too. So what sets things apart?
More than we have room for today, but here’s a good overview:
What are the early signs of dementia, and how does it differ from normal aging?
Want to read more?
You might like our previous article more specifically about reducing Alzheimer’s risk:
Reducing Alzheimer’s Risk Early!
Take care!
Share This Post
Learn To Grow
Sign up for weekly gardening tips, product reviews and discounts.
-
Stop Cancer 20 Years Ago
Dr. Jenn Simmons shares vital tips on preventing cancer and inflammation, advocating for lifestyle changes and proactive health management at any age.
Get Abreast And Keep Abreast
This is Dr. Jenn Simmons. Her specialization is integrative oncology, as she—then a breast cancer surgeon—got breast cancer, decided the system wasn’t nearly as good from the patients’ side of things as from the doctors’ side, and took to educate herself, and now others, on how things can be better.
What does she want us to know?
Start now
If you have breast cancer, the best time to start adjusting your lifestyle might be 20 years ago, but the second-best time is now. We realize our readers with breast cancer (or a history thereof) probably have indeed started already—all strength to you.
What this means for those of us without breast cancer (or a history therof) is: start now
Even if you don’t have a genetic risk factor, even if there’s no history of it in your family, there’s just no reason not to start now.
Start what, you ask? Taking away its roots. And how?
Inflammation as the root of cancer
To oversimplify: cancer occurs because an accidentally immortal cell replicates and replicates and replicates and takes any nearby resources to keep on going. While science doesn’t know all the details of how this happens, it is a factor of genetic mutation (itself a normal process, without which evolution would be impossible), something which in turn is accelerated by damage to the DNA. The damage to the DNA? That occurs (often as not) as a result of cellular oxidation. Cellular oxidation is far from the only genotoxic thing out there, and a lot of non-food “this thing causes cancer” warnings are usually about other kinds of genotoxicity. But cellular oxidation is a big one, and it’s one that we can fight vigorously with our lifestyle.
Because cellular oxidation and inflammation go hand-in-hand, reducing one tends to reduce the other. That’s why so often you’ll see in our Research Review Monday features, a line that goes something like:
“and now for those things that usually come together: antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and anti-aging”
So, fight inflammation now, and have a reduced risk of a lot of other woes later.
See: How to Prevent (or Reduce) Inflammation
Don’t settle for “normal”
People are told, correctly but not always helpfully, such things as:
- It’s normal to have less energy at your age
- It’s normal to have a weaker immune system at your age
- It’s normal to be at a higher risk of diabetes, heart disease, etc
…and many more. And these things are true! But that doesn’t mean we have to settle for them.
We can be all the way over on the healthy end of the distribution curve. We can do that!
(so can everyone else, given sufficient opportunity and resources, because health is not a zero-sum game)
If we’re going to get a cancer diagnosis, then our 60s are the decade where we’re most likely to get it. Earlier than that and the risk is extant but lower; later than that and technically the risk increases, but we probably got it already in our 60s.
So, if we be younger than 60, then now’s a good time to prepare to hit the ground running when we get there. And if we missed that chance, then again, the second-best time is now:
See: Focusing On Health In Our Sixties
Fast to live
Of course, anything can happen to anyone at any age (alas), but this is about the benefits of living a fasting lifestyle—that is to say, not just fasting for a 4-week health kick or something, but making it one’s “new normal” and just continuing it for life.
This doesn’t mean “never eat”, of course, but it does mean “practice intermittent fasting, if you can”—something that Dr. Simmons strongly advocates.
See: Intermittent Fasting: We Sort The Science From The Hype
While this calls back to the previous “fight inflammation”, it deserves its own mention here as a very specific way of fighting it.
It’s never too late
All of the advices that go before a cancer diagnosis, continue to stand afterwards too. There is no point of “well, I already have cancer, so what’s the harm in…?”
The harm in it after a diagnosis will be the same as the harm before. When it comes to lifestyle, preventing a cancer and preventing it from spreading are very much the same thing, which is also the same as shrinking it. Basically, if it’s anticancer, it’s anticancer, no matter whether it’s before, during, or after.
Dr. Simmons has seen too many patients get a diagnosis, and place their lives squarely in the hands of doctors, when doctors can only do so much.
Instead, Dr. Simmons recommends taking charge of your health as best you are able, today and onwards, no matter what. And that means two things:
- Knowing stuff
- Doing stuff
So it becomes our responsibility (and our lifeline) to educate ourselves, and take action accordingly.
Want to know more?
We recently reviewed her book, and heartily recommend it:
The Smart Woman’s Guide to Breast Cancer – by Dr. Jenn Simmons
Enjoy!