Canadian scientists have found astonishing evidence that the lifelong use of two languages can help delay the onset of dementia symptoms by four years compared to people who are monolingual.
Adults over 70 with higher levels of education forgot words at a greater rate than those with less education, according to a new study from the University of Southern California. The findings, published in the current issue of Research on Aging, suggest that after age 70, educated adults may begin to lose the ability to use their schooling to compensate for normal, age-related memory loss.
Australian researchers say that a genotype that heightens the risk for Alzheimer’s disease does not contribute to cognitive change during most of adulthood. The largest study of its kind has found that carriers and noncarriers show the same type and extent of normal age-related cognitive declines, decades before carriers start to more often develop symptoms of dementia. The findings suggest that the higher-risk genotype acts only in later years to layer disease on top of normal aging.
“My father is exhausted caring for my mother with dementia. He refuses all help and I see him declining. I don’t know what to do or where to find help.” Visits over the holidays bring to the attention of adult children concerns about aging parents. More of us will be facing care giving needs as the oldest of the baby boomers will be celebrating their 61st birthdays this year and over 37 million Americans are age 65 or over, representing 12.5% of the U.S. population.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins and Yale university medical schools have found that a simple blood test to measure uric acid, a measure of kidney function, might reveal a risk factor for cognitive problems in old age. Of 96 community-dwelling adults aged 60 to 92 years, those with uric-acid levels at the high end of the normal range had the lowest scores on tests of mental processing speed, verbal memory and working memory.
A gene variant linked to living a very long life–to 90 and beyond–also serves to help very old people think clearly and retain their memories, according to new research by scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. Their findings are published in the December 26, 2006 issue of Neurology.
UCSF scientists have identified a cell population that is a primary target of the degenerative brain disease known as frontotemporal dementia, which is as common as Alzheimer’s disease in patients who develop dementia before age 65.
A new study examined brain tissue acquired at autopsy and found that VENs were devastated in FTD. Von Economo neurons (VENs) are uniquely shaped brain cells that seem to have evolved in a select group of socially complex species: great apes, humans, and, as reported last month, whales.
The surge of baby boomers now entering their 60s means more drivers on the road who may be impaired by dementia or other cognitive impairments linked to aging. Researchers at the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and elsewhere have developed a three-hour workshop that trains health care providers to identify potentially unsafe drivers with dementia and to encourage appropriate retirement from driving.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today approved Invega (paliperidone) extended-release tablets for the treatment of schizophrenia. Paliperidone is a new molecular entity, which means this medication contains an active substance that has never before been approved for marketing in any form in the United States.