Healthy Lifestyle

Cognitive Health

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Older Adults and Cognitive Health Differences between Normal Ageing and Dementia Mild Cognitive Impairment

Older Adults and Cognitive Health

What is dementia?
  • A brain disease.
  • Caused by damage and loss of nerve cells in the brain. Symptoms include disruption in recognition, memory, judgment, mathematics, language, problem solving and decision-making process.
  • Some people with dementia may experience changes in personality, behavior and psychosocial well-being.
  • The degradation of these functions affects daily life and activities, is not a normal part of aging.
Prevalence
  • A local report in 2017 stated that 1 in 10 older adults suffered from dementia in Hong Kong.
  • The prevalence of dementia increases with age to about 20-30% of the adults aged over 80 suffering from dementia of varying stages.
Causes
  • Alzheimer’s disease: the most common type (around 60-70%), which has a progressive onset. Its causes remained not fully identified.
  • Vascular dementia: the second most common type (around 20-30%), caused by reduced blood flow to the brain, e.g. stroke and other cerebrovascular diseases. Patients often have comorbidities such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, hyperlipidemia, or obesity.
  • Others: Parkinson’s disease, hypothyroidism, nutritional deficiencies (e.g. vitamin B12), encephalitis, medicinal poisoning, etc.
Characteristics / Symptoms
  • Early stage: become forgetful especially related to events that happened moments ago; may require assistance on carrying out complex household work; become moody, anxious and depressed.
  • Middle stage: memory loss become more severe, especially in relation to recalling recent events, people’s names or places, as well as increasingly having communication problems. They may repeatedly ask the same questions, show delay in response, or may be unable to live and carry out daily activities independently.
  • Late stage: unable to recognize family members; mood and behavior changes including double incontinence, aggressiveness and agitation.
Be aware: Don’t try to diagnose dementia for yourself or someone else. If you are worried about yourself or someone close to you, consult a doctor and discuss your concerns. Dementia can only be diagnosed by a qualified and experienced health professional.

Tips for Cognitive Health

Below are some of the tips to maintain cognitive health
  • Keep your mind active: Participate in cognitively stimulating activities such as reading, writing, drawing, playing puzzles, mahjong, etc.
  • Healthy Diet: Develop a balanced and regular diet. It is recommended to adopt a healthy eating pyramid or a Mediterranean diet, as well as to eat various types of fresh and healthy food to absorb sufficient nutrients adequately. For more information, you may refer to Healthy Diet
  • Be physically active: For more information, you may refer to Exercise.
    • Maintain a healthy weight: weight gain, high waist circumference, and obesity all can have an adverse effect on your cognitive function and increase risk of dementia.
  • Get quality sleep: research found that individuals with sleep disturbances compared to those without any had a higher risk of incident in dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Maintain good mental health: Long-term stress or depression may impair brain functions. Learn to regulate emotional health, such as practice relaxation techniques, positive thinking, and self-affirmation, etc.
  • Maintain or build social relationships: connect with other people through social activities, visit your friends and family, hang out with loved ones, join programs at your older adult center.
  • Manage your health conditions well: chronic health conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol have been found to be associated with cognitive decline and dementia
  • Stay away from tobacco and alcohol: Quit smoking, do not drink or drink only a few sips of alcohol. Smokers and heavier drinkers are at higher risk of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.