Education, healthy lifestyle reduce dementia risk

BETTER education and a healthy lifestyle reduce the number of elderly people who suffer from dementia.

This finding in March 2009 by the UK’s Cambridge University researchers Dr David Llewellyn and Dr Fiona Matthews and the Medical ResearchCouncil Cognitive Function and Ageing Study shows a small but significant improvement in elderly people's mental abilities over the last two decades. Researchers believe this is due to the raising of the compulsory education age, reductions in the number of elderly people smoking and other health developments.

The researchers compared the results of more than 9,000 people over 65 whose mental faculties were tested in 1991 with those of over 5,000 people in 2002.

They were all given a standard test used to detect early signs of dementia, which involves naming as many animals as possible within a minute. The tests showed a small but potentially significant increase in the number of words a minute people used when asked to list words associated with animals.

The study, which was published in the journal Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition (March 2009), could help to predict future numbers of elderly people who will develop dementia with greater accuracy.

 According to the report, the increase in educational levels that was observed is consistent with changes in the mandatory school leaving age in England. The school leaving age was set at 15 in 1947, rising to 16 in 1972.

Other factors that were also likely to have affected the cognitive abilities of the 2002 group are the decrease in dementia include fewer heart attacks, increased prescription of drugs to reduce high blood pressure, fewer people smoking and improvements in early life nutrition

Dr David Llewellyn, who led the study, told BBC that dementia happens when people decline cognitively to the point where it interferes with their ability to do basic things like cook. “It tends to happen later in life, but the changes that lead to it tend to start much earlier. These findings are important because they affect our projection of what's likely to happen in the future.”

Brain cells dying fast

Dementia is an illness which affects the brain, causing the brain cells to die faster rate than normal. It affects mainly people aged 65 or older.

In Singapore, about 5.2 percent of people over the age of 65 suffer from dementia. In 2005, 22,000 people over 65 years suffered from dementia. By 2020 the figure is expected to reach 53,000, and by 2050 the figure may increase to 187,000

There are two main types of dementia – Alzheimer’s disease and Multi-infarct dementia.

In Alzheimer’s disease, the onset of symptoms and the progression of the illness is gradual. Although the cause is still unknown, present research suggests there is a familial tendency and certain chemicals in the brain are lacking.

Multi-infarct dementia results from a series of strokes in the brain.

Signs of dementia include problems remembering recent events, disorientation of place and time and decreased judgment. As yet, there is no known medical cure for the disease.