#aging-and-dementia

#aging-and-dementia

Low vitamin D in midlife may represent a potentially modifiable target to mitigate the risk of neuroimaging signs of preclinical dementia.

Shingles is a viral infection caused by the varicella-zoster virus, which also causes chickenpox. If you've had chickenpox, the virus stays in your body and can reactivate later in life as shingles at any age, though most commonly after 50. While caused by the same virus, shingles and chickenpox are not the same illness. They present differently because, while chickenpox is the initial infection, if and when the virus reactivates, it travels along nerve pathways to the skin, producing shingles.

Most people will forget a name, misplace their phone, or lose track of a conversation at some point. Usually, those moments pass without much thought. But for many adults, especially as they age, small lapses can trigger a much deeper fear: Is this the beginning of cognitive decline? As a neurologist, I hear this concern often. And as a researcher, I have learned something important: Worry about cognition and cognitive disease are not the same thing.

Over the past six years, I've had the privilege of caring for patients with varying degrees of cognitive impairment. As a medical cannabis doctor, I often visit these patients in memory care units, seeing these once self-sufficient individuals, their personas now diminished, no longer able to care for themselves. They become angry and anxious as they confront the fact that their minds, their memories, what made them who they were, recollections of all that they have lived through and accomplished, are slipping away from them.

A groundbreaking study found that adults who sit for 10 or more hours daily face a significantly higher risk of dementia compared to those who sit less. The research, which tracked over 50,000 adults using wearable devices, revealed that the risk increases dramatically after crossing that 10-hour threshold.

Lewy body dementia (LBD) is the second-most-common neurodegenerative cause of dementia, after Alzheimer's Disease. But it's the most-common cause that doesn't receive sufficient attention.

Psychologists who study narrative identity have found that elderly individuals often repeat specific stories as a way of preserving and transmitting their core identity and values. These aren't random tales that bubble up from failing memory. They're carefully curated selections from a lifetime of experiences, chosen unconsciously for their significance.

Sometimes it's a fall that brings a broken hip and a loss of mobility. Or memory problems that bubble into danger. Or the death of the partner who was relied upon for care.The need to move to a nursing home, assisted living facility or another type of care setting often comes suddenly, setting off an abrupt, daunting search. It's likely something no one ever wanted, but knowing what to look for and what to ask can make a big difference.

But questions remain about the accuracy and uncertainty of these tests, and experts caution that the assays aren't ready for prime time. While the results here are encouraging, they are not yet at the level of having significant clinical benefit for individual patients, says Corey Bolton, a clinical neuropsychologist and an assistant professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, who was not involved in the new study.

Researchers used data from two health studies to track the caffeine-drinking habits of more than 130,000 people over four decades. They found that drinking 2-3 cups of coffee or 1-2 cups of tea a day was associated with the greatest reductions in rate of cognitive decline, a result that held true even in people with a genetic variant called APOE4, which is associated with Alzheimer's disease.

To make their discovery, researchers examined donated eye tissue from more than 100 people who had died with Alzheimer's, mild cognitive impairment or no signs of dementia. They were looking specifically for C. pneumoniae, because previous research has already linked it to Alzheimer's. The bacteria has also been detected in brain tissue from patients who died with the condition, sometimes found close to the sticky amyloid plaques and tangles believed to drive memory loss and confusion.