TheAgePage Blog

This is Sarah's blog with her thoughts and opinions on older people and their place in British society.

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Avoiding dementia by having a nice time with friends

Posted: 27 July 2010 | 4:49 pm

We're on holiday on the beautiful north Norfolk coast, catching up with old friends and family, both old and young, so we’ve been busy socialising...

It turns out that this is not only a good thing to be doing now, but could also be good for us in other ways too, on into the future…

Brain decline has a profound impact on the life and relationships of people who develop it. As Dr. Lawrence Whalley said, “Being socially active, intellectually engaged individual, having recreational time, enjoying a good diet, lacking stress – these are all things that tend to help in avoiding dementia”. Dr Whalley is psychiatrist and professor of mental health at the School of Medicine at Scotland’s University of Aberdeen and author of The Ageing Brain, so he should know.

Recent studies show that having a fulfilling social life can significantly reduce people’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. So it is little surprise that conversely, lonely people are at increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease later in life.

Of 823 older people studied for loneliness and given a loneliness score of 1 (lowest) to 5, for each point of increase in the loneliness score that participants had, their risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease increased by 51 per cent.

In another study of the social networks of 89 elderly people, published by The Lancet Neurology, it was found that social networks like having close friends and staying in contact with family members may help protect against the damaging effects of Alzheimer’s disease. Participants’ cognition was also tested 21 times each year. After the participants died, the researchers analysed their brains and found that the larger a person’s social network, the less effect tangles and plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease had on their cognitive test scores.

It’s certainly nice to have an excuse to have some down time and a couple of drinks with some mates.

Source: University of Aberdeen

'Ejection head'

Posted: 16 July 2010 | 11:00 pm

It's a shame for Marie Antoinette that she was beheaded. Apart from anything else, she came up with a great 'bon-mot' for older people whose memories might be failing: “There is nothing new except what has been forgotten”. Read more

P7C3 and A20 - new roads to Alzheimer's treatment?

Posted: 11 July 2010 | 10:14 pm

Much of the scientific research into Alzheimer's disease focuses on breaking down the sticky protein that clogs the brain, damaging and killing cells and most existing drugs are not a cure as they cannot repair dead tissue. But I read... Read more

D is for dementia, E is for vitamin that might help...

Posted: 8 July 2010 | 11:52 am

First the bad news… – and no surprise perhaps – fear, anger and depression are likely to accompany a diagnosis of dementia. One in three people over the age of 65 can expect to die with some other form of... Read more

Football crazy, football mad

Posted: 28 June 2010 | 10:31 pm

Just before the England team's drubbing yesterday, the BBC news website announces ‘a new therapy which uses football to stimulate the minds of dementia sufferers that could be extended abroad, after the success of a pilot project’. This refers to... Read more

National Care Homes Congress

Posted: 26 June 2010 | 3:53 pm

Just back from the National Care Homes Congress where Shaaron Caratella, Manager of Barchester Queens Court Care Home and I presented the filmed results of our second "Collected Short Stories" project (autobiographical pictorial life story albums) for, with and by... Read more

Standing up and going places for pensioners' rights

Posted: 22 June 2010 | 12:35 pm

2008 was the centenary of the State Pension. Dot Gibson is Vice President, and London Region secretary, of the National Pensioners Convention, which stands up for pensioners’ interests. Last week she was speaking at the Kensington and Chelsea Pensioners Forum,... Read more

Blind side

Posted: 15 June 2010 | 2:47 pm

Nearly all old people wear glasses and my mum was no different. She also had advanced dementia and spent the last few years of her long life in a care home. One day about a year before she died, a... Read more

Our favourite toys 45: Pretend horse jumping

Posted: 11 June 2010 | 11:18 am

We were early horse-riders, endlessly galloping around the garden. We jumped over homemade fences made from brooms and other house-working and garden implements lying across bricks, up-turned flowerpots and the like. I had a black horse and my friend had... Read more

Adding it all up...

Posted: 7 June 2010 | 10:35 am

“My Government will establish a commission on a sustainable structure of funding for long-term care.” The new coalition government says that urgent reform of the social care system is needed to provide more control to individuals and their carers, and... Read more

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