| |||
 | |||
Men may be at higher risk of mild memory loss as they age than women, according to a new study.
The study in Tuesday's issue of Neurology looked at mild cognitive impairment — showing symptoms of memory problems that are not severe enough to be considered dementia.
Dr. R.O. Roberts of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. and his co-authors followed a group of 1,450 people aged 70 to 89 for an average of three years. None of the participants had dementia when the study began.
The people in Olmsted County, Minn. had memory tests every 15 months during the study, with nearly half having four assessments.
The number of new cases of dementia per year was higher in men, at 72 per 1,000 people compared with 57 per 1,000 people in women, the researchers found.
Those who were not married or had less education were also more likely to develop memory loss.
So sorry you are going threw this…hopig you can get some help.
I noted the same thing. The doctor was born in ’46. I was born in ’42. I’ll be 70 in less than 2 months. Maybe he forgot how old he was.
On a different note: There is virtually no reference to valid research in this article. There needs to be good, peer reviewed research conducted to examine the ideas presented.
What did this artilce say? I’ve already forgotten.…
What a lengthy article to get to the point….
Brevity would have been easier to follow.
Well, I just turned 72 yesterday (or was it the day before?) and I certainly don’t seem to be suffering from whatever he’s talking about.
people ask to forget bad days, and it is a wish come true when they forget, right?
longer the live, the longer you have to observe details and absorb confusions in life… it is said and studied that human memory is like a tape recorder, perfect… the ability to recall on desired command… whole different topic, and memory loss is impossible… fixating on a past time in the wrong time to recall the past, is more of a repeating life lesson never yet learned giving another example of the same truth free will rejected, and the ability to recall gets squirelly based on racing thoughts
I’m 49 and was loosing my memory getting lost driving were I should of know where I was. Could not remember what day it was and where I put things set down my coffee and it would take 10 to 20 minutes to find then the headaches started in would last for weeks and months on end. Finally a neurologist put all the aches and pain together with the memory losses and it turned out to be a B 12 deficiency not that I’m getting monthly injections I am doing better and getting some memory back.
yes but like the guy who never smoked, drank or had wild sex one day you will be laying in the hospital te doctors will come in look at your chart and start laughing at you because your laying there dying of nothing. Everyone dies you gotta enjoy life
Well I am in my 50s and I don’t recall anything I have forgotten
And the article is deficient in EXAMPLES.
Wonder how many people could get away with that type of diet. Probably not many.
I think sometimes we are too hard on ourselves. If we misplace our keys at 16, it’s a joke, but if it happens when we are older, we blame it on memory loss.
I noticed the same thing! We need information we can USE.
Interesting: The doctor-author refers to "us 50-year-old baby boomers." And he says he was born in January, 1946.
Unless I’ve forgotten how to add and subtract, that would make him 65 years old and about to turn 66.
(And I am a LOT older than he is!)
Everyone’s body is different.
I definately agree with what you say about the caregiver, and I hope you can find some help in these trying times. Have you found an Alzheimers support group in your area? I pity the patients as well, as it is difficult for them to deal with the progression as well. I’ll keep you both in my prayers.
On the other hand you could probably also find people with dementia who ate a very healthy diet so it is very difficult to generalize. My father is almost 90 and sharp as a tack. His blood pressure, cholesterol, eyesight, and mental faculties are amazing. The wierd thing is his life has been full of almost everything that you rail against. He loves sweets, has cunsumed a ton of cream, butter, cheese and whole milk in his life, always looked for the hunk of salt pork in the beans so he could eat it up, and his favorite food is sausage. He smoked cigarettes until about age 40 but has never stopped smoking his pipe. How do you explain something like that? Just pray I got his genes!
Alzheimer’s is a terrible disease. It robs one of their dignity and self-worth and destroys families. Visiting my husband daily and seeing the shell of a man he used to be is worse than coming to terms with a spouse’s death. At least the other spouse has closure. Here I watch him slowly deteriorate. The emotional roller-coaster for the family is horrible. If you know of someone close like this – give the caregiver a break – even for a few hours a week. Pity the caregiver, not the patient.
Eat lots of fruits and vegetables. And AVOID SWEETS. My family has never had any trouble with memory, because we DO NOT EAT SWEETS, including bread, rolls, cakes, etc. ====My personal opinion is that CHEESE can cause plaque build up and clog the brain. We have known several Alzheimer’s victims whose diets were full of sweets and cheeses.
God Bless our Baby Boomers and God Bless America. In God We Trust.
In all candor, while your ideas have "ferment," I want to see genuine scientific research done: two groups with the same level of intelligence, health and memory with validity testing and brain wave analysis, followed over years, one a control group that does nothing out of the ordinary and another that practices intentional "brain" health with as much physical testing of the brain as possible, both at the beginning, throughout, and at the end (death) of the trial. My impression is that there is entirely too much anecdotal speculation and not nearly enough bio-chemical research going on to get to the root of best memory health practices. In Dr. Reisberg’s research study comparing NCI and SCI, were variables such as gender, IQ, EQ, educational level, depression, blood pressure, weight and diet, health habits (smoking, alcohol, drugs and pharaceuticals, exercise, etc.) all considered? I can think of lots of reasons why a person might subjectively report that their memory is not working as well as it used to while another person, with fewer tasks, less self-reflection, as well as a myriad of other variable factors, might think their (mis-firing) neurotransmitters were working just fine. I would expect that "testing" cognitive impairment in the general population might be particularly challenging, as so many "memory" demands are experientially contextual and not readily duplicated by an interview, flashcards, or a paper and pencil test.
In No 2, you cheated. You wrote:"… the place where your nerve cells communicate known as the synapse. To stay sharp with age, you have to help your all-important brain chemicals, called neurotransmitters, remain in abundance. That will give you the spark that is the hallmark of a youthful brain."
You tell us we need to help our nuertransmitters "remain in abundance." But you don’t tell us HOW to do that.
Joe LaRocca
its a terrible disease
hman570, your comment could have been mine. I was born in ’44 and had already decided to ‘save’ this article! I agree with Dr. Dharma about the list of ‘main ideas’ to stave off dementia, and that there is hope that these diagnoses don’t have to be written in stone. I’m sure i do have SCI (all the signs), but i have a little part-time job as a bookkeeper (numbers) and i walk my dog–i truly feel these 2 activities will help delay any progression that might be ‘programmed’ in my future. My mother in her late 80′s definitely has MCI, although it does interfere with her everyday life somewhat–so it’s probably even more than MCI. But she does surprisingly well and still lives on her own. Thank you, Dr. Dharma, for an enlightening and easy to understand article.
Exellent article – I wish I had read this before I wrote my Gerontology thesis on the topic, as it essentially reinforced that which I tried to prove. We all need to optimize every cell to result in a physically and mentally porficient existance in our "golden years." Thank you Dr. Khalsa.
Interesting article…
Learned a lot from this article but still have the fear of not knowing anyone. I am a war baby born in late 1944. Will keep this article on file to go back to from time to time to try and keep things going in the right direction.
Thank you for a very informative post on memory and its loss or perception of loss.
The folks that I associate with have a colloquialism and acronym for memory loss.
These are: "Can’t Remember Sh*t" or CRS.
I now read and write more often to keep my brain active. Exercise helps also.
Thanks Again.
More Coffee…
R/ PRONESE
This was a very well researched piece, Dr. Khalsa. My mother developed vascular dementia in her mid-80s, but every time I forget something or lose focus, you know what I think? Thanks for sharing such specific information, and I’ll be pleased to share it on my FB page, "Mind Your Body." Let’s hear it for those neurotransmitters.