#dementia-agitation

#dementia-agitation

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.

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.

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.

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.

This past month, many members of the American public (the sane part, at least) have been united in our wishful thinking: they want that man gone, and it can't happen soon enough. Last week, after Tr*mp's decaying hand (and an emergency Air Force One stop) raised everyone's hopes, it seems we're back where we started: wishing, hoping, and praying for an end to the madness we're currently living through.

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.

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.

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.

When I asked neurologists about their top behaviors for brain health, they all stressed the importance of physical activity. Exercise is top, No. 1, when we're thinking about the biggest bang for your buck, said Dr. Gregg Day, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic. Numerous studies have shown that people who exercise regularly tend to perform better on attention, memory and executive functioning tests. There can be a small cognitive boost immediately after a workout, and the effects are sustained if people exercise consistently.

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.

Decades of research show that people who have more years of education, more cognitively demanding jobs or more mentally stimulating hobbies all tend to have a reduced risk of cognitive impairment as they get older. Experts think this is partly thanks to cognitive reserve: Basically, the more brain power you've built up over the years, the more you can stand to lose before you experience impairment.

If you're going to prioritize one thing for your brain health, make it this: regular aerobic exercise. Multiple large-scale studies show that aerobic exercise doesn't just keep your heart healthy-it directly impacts your brain structure. One year of aerobic exercise in older adults led to significantly larger hippocampal volumes and better spatial memory. Other trials documented that exercise actually slows age-related gray matter volume loss.

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.

New therapies for Alzheimer's disease should target a particular gene linked to the condition, according to researchers who said most cases would never arise if its harmful effects were neutralised. The call to action follows the arrival of the first wave of drugs that aim to treat Alzheimer's patients by removing toxic proteins from the brain. While the drugs slow the disease down, the benefits are minor,

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.