Is Your Forgetfulness Dementia-in-the-Making?

Many elderly people start to panic about dementia or Alzheimer’s disease when they find gaps in their memory or weaknesses in their ability to make quick decisions.

But are your little senior moments a normal part of aging or a fast track to the disease we all dread the most?

A new study in the journal Neurology seeks to answer this question.

Dementia is best prevented during our youth and middle ages, before the risk factors like heart disease multiply. But if you are already getting older and starting to struggle with memory and decision-making, it must be treated as early as possible—before it turns into dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, which are strongly resistant to treatment.

This well-established fact motivated a research team led by Columbia University to investigate the health, social, and demographic predictors of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), along with the progression of MCI to dementia.

They recruited 2,903 subjects with an average age in their mid-70s. All of them were cognitively normal at the beginning of the study.

They observed these participants over a period of 6.3 years to see who would develop MCI and dementia; 752 of the subjects were given an MCI diagnosis in the observation period, and 480 of these agreed to be studied for longer.

These MCI-positive subjects struggled with thinking and memory but continued to be independent and only occasionally struggled with activities like shopping and taking medications correctly.

The scientists first identified the risk factors for MCI.

Their most important finding was that 47.9% of subjects with MCI were cognitively normal after the follow-up period, meaning that the MCI did not just fail to progress to dementia, but that it actually disappeared altogether.

A further 30% still had MCI but displayed no deterioration of cognitive function.

Only 12.9% had progressed to dementia. This is certainly a high percentage, showing that MCI is a major risk factor for dementia, although the researchers recommend that we think of it merely as a risk factor, and not as an early stage of dementia, as experts often do.

But whether you’re experiencing these mild senior moments or have already been diagnosed with dementia, you definitely want to regain your mental strength. Fortunately, that’s quite easy to do if you load your brain with the one free ingredient explained here…