Preventing Dementia (5)

Week 5 (the final week) of my “Preventing Dementia” course is about the research currently under way.

·         Research of women over the age of 65 showed after 12 months of physical exercise in those who had not been active had a similar mortality rate to those women who had been active all along.

·         Research is currently being conducted around the world on dementia:

1.       A Tasmanian study called “The Healthy Brain Project” is comparing adults over 60 years who go back to studying at university compared to those who don’t and see what changes happen to the brain function over the next 10 to 20 years

2.       Brain training-is it effective? Currently it shows good improvement in memory function but no results yet on whether it actually prevents dementia.

3.       The FINGER trial- run in Finland, it targeted people with multiple risk factors and went about changing them so increased exercise, stopped smoking, better diets, managed high blood pressure. The subjects also did brain training. So far the results are very positive.

4.       Centre of Research excellence in Cognitive Health-studying intervention for middle aged and older adults to see if they prevent dementia.

5.       The European dementia Prevention Initiative- trialling different interventions.