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What your house says about cognitive health.

In a recent Irish Times article, John O’Sullivan writes, “According to experts, one potential telltale sign of dementia-induced memory loss is the layout of a person’s home.”

It caught me by surprise — we’re all concerned about the increases in Alzheimer’s and dementia but I never considered how a house can be an early indicator of cognitive loss. I’ve seen issues while in someone’s home that could have been a red flag but I simply didn’t look at it that way.

So, what about the home can indicate age-related cognitive issues? The article mentions things like household items that are out of place — a tea kettle in the freezer, for example. It’s fairly obvious, but what else?

  1. Clutter and Disorganization: A cluttered and disorganized home may indicate difficulties in executive functioning – the ability to plan, organize, and complete tasks. Difficulty in maintaining orderliness may also be linked to memory problems and attention issues.
  2. Navigation Challenges: Can the individual easily navigate through the home? Difficulty in spatial orientation and wayfinding may point to changes in brain function, particularly in areas responsible for spatial awareness and memory.
  3. Safety Hazards: Take note of safety hazards or potential risks in the home. Forgetting to turn off appliances, leaving doors and windows unlocked, or neglecting to address tripping hazards can indicate lapses in judgment and decision-making – cognitive abilities that are crucial for maintaining independence and well-being as you age.
  4. Decline in Home Maintenance: Is the person neglecting routine household tasks that they once managed effortlessly? A decline in home maintenance, such as neglecting repairs, failing to pay bills on time, or letting essential services lapse, may signal cognitive impairment.
  5. Changes in Home Environment: Pay attention to any significant changes such as excessive hoarding, unconventional use of household items, or alterations to familiar spaces. These changes may reflect shifts in thinking, perception, or behavior associated with cognitive decline or neurological conditions.

It’s important to remember that occasional lapses in memory or organization are normal, especially as we age. However, if you notice persistent or significant changes in the layout and organization of the home, it’s essential to seek medical evaluation.

Early detection and intervention can help address cognitive issues and potentially slow the progression of cognitive decline.

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The importance of retirees braintaining?


As we age, one of the most vital things we can do is to keep our minds active and engaged. Just as physical exercise is essential for our bodies, mental exercise is crucial for our brains.

Enter “braintaining” – a concept that emphasizes actively maintaining and enhancing cognitive abilities as we age.

What exactly is braintaining? It’s an approach to mental fitness involving activities and practices that stimulate the brain, improve memory, enhance problem-solving skills, and promote overall cognitive health.

So, how can seniors and retirees incorporate braintaining into their daily lives?

  1. Challenge Yourself: Engage in activities that push your cognitive limits. Solve puzzles, play strategy games like chess or Sudoku, or learn a new skill or hobby. The key is to choose activities that require mental effort and provide a sense of accomplishment.
  2. Stay Socially Connected: Social interaction is vital for brain health. Join clubs, attend community events, or simply spend time with friends and family. Engaging in conversations, sharing stories, and participating in group activities can help keep your mind sharp.
  3. Exercise Regularly: Physical activity isn’t just good for your body – it’s also great for your brain. Regular exercise improves blood flow to the brain, promotes the growth of new brain cells, and enhances cognitive function. Aim for a mix of cardiovascular exercise, strength training, and flexibility exercises.
  4. Eat a Brain-Healthy Diet: What you eat can have a significant impact on your brain health. Incorporate plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats into your diet. Foods rich in antioxidants, omega-3 fatty acids, and vitamins B and E are particularly beneficial for brain function.
  5. Practice Mindfulness: Mindfulness meditation and relaxation techniques can help reduce stress, improve concentration, and enhance cognitive function. Take a few minutes each day to sit quietly, focus on your breath, and let go of any distracting thoughts.
  6. Get Plenty of Sleep: Adequate sleep is essential for cognitive function and memory consolidation. Aim for 7-9 hours of quality sleep each night and establish a relaxing bedtime routine to help you unwind and prepare for sleep.

Braintaining is not about perfection – it’s about making a commitment to mental well-being. By incorporating these practices into your daily routine, you can help keep your mind sharp, agile, and resilient as you age.

>>Click here to learn more about “braintaining” in an article from Deseret News.

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Keeping your brain healthy as you age.

It’s a concern that affects all of us – how can we keep our brains healthy as we grow older? We want to stay sharp and ward off memory loss when possible. Brain health has a profound effect our ability to enjoy life and keep ourselves healthy and safe.

While you can’t prevent certain medical conditions, there are some simple things you can do to help keep you brain healthy. SeniorLiving.com offers some great tips:

  • Exercise – get your blood flowing.
  • Get enough sleep – it helps your brain repair/regenerate.
  • Eat a healthy diet – health food supports brain health.
  • Participate in mentally stimulating activities – challenge your brain with puzzles and reading.
  • Stay social – social connections are key to brain health.
  • Manage stress – try meditation or yoga.
  • Avoid risky behavior – avoid smoking and excessive drinking.

Read up on brain health. Many physicians note small things that can make a huge difference such as laughter and ensuring you have a sense of purpose. Senior centers are returning to their pre-Covid schedules and are a great place to get started.

>>Click here to read the full article and explore more resources from SeniorLiving.com.

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Clutter in the Attic: Why memory falters with age

 (HealthDay News) — Imagine a closet filled with treasures accumulated during a lifetime of rich experiences. Now, imagine going into that closet to find one specific object.

Only maybe you get distracted by another, more enticing item from your past. Or you find the object you’re seeking but it’s intertwined with six similar items, and withdrawing the one will drag out the entire tangle.

That’s how an old person’s memory works, a new theory claims. Seniors struggle with memory not because they have trouble remembering things, but because their minds are too overloaded with a lifetime’s worth of memories.

“There’s this prevalent idea that older adults’ memories are kind of impoverished, or they have weak memories that do not contain a lot of information,” said Tarek Amer, a postdoctoral research fellow at Columbia and Harvard universities, and lead author of a new paper in Trends in Cognitive Sciences that explains this new theory.

“But based on a lot of evidence, we’re actually arguing the opposite. Older adults store too much information, so in a sense they have a harder time focusing their attention on one piece of target information and exclude all sorts of other distractions,” he added.

When anyone attempts to access a memory, their brain quickly sifts through everything stored in it to find the relevant information, Amer and his colleagues write.

Young people don’t have as much prior knowledge tucked away in their brains, so it’s easier for them to find the memory they’re seeking without being distracted by irrelevant recollections. But older people have to dig through a huge amount of prior knowledge when looking for a specific memory. It’s more difficult for older folks to suppress irrelevant reminiscences, and they often pull out a gob of other memories that are stuck to the one they sought, according to behavioral and brain imaging studies cited by the researchers.

“If you know five different people with the same first name — five different Johns, for example — and you’re trying to remember the last name for one of the Johns you know, all the different last names will come to mind and essentially interfere with your ability to remember the last name you’re trying to remember,” Amer said, citing an example.

While this has been presented as a weakness of the aging mind, Amer said that’s mainly a function of the recall tests that are commonly used in psychology labs to measure memory.

Looked at in another way, this brain clutter actually gives older people an advantage over younger people when it comes to tasks involving creativity or wisdom, Amer said. Because of the way memory tests are performed, there are plenty of studies supporting the idea that too much clutter in seniors’ minds causes worse memory performance, he said.

“What still needs more work to provide more evidence for this theory is the other end, showing that these types of cluttered or enriched memory representations in older adults might be beneficial in tasks we encounter in daily life,” Amer said.

For example, studies have shown that seniors outperform younger adults when asked to perform an “alternate uses task” — a psychological test in which they’re handed a common object like a hammer and asked to come up with outside-the-box uses for it.

“You can think of older adults as having this extra information that allow them to form these broad associations between diverse bits of information,” Amer said. “Older adults are forming these cluttered memories, but then once it’s actually time to use this extra information they can perform better on these creativity tasks.”

The new theory “makes sense to me,” said Aaron Bonner-Jackson, a neuropsychologist with the Cleveland Clinic’s Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health.

“Older adult brains are casting a wider net on whatever they’re trying to do, and that can have good and bad consequences,” he said.

This helps explain why storytelling is so much fun for older folks, especially when it tends to ramble a bit, Bonner-Jackson said.

“They may be asked a question and then because they have so many associations, that might trigger an old memory or the name of a person or something they did in the past,” he said. “Reminiscing can be very pleasurable for older people, because they can often make associations with more things.”

It also shows what elderly people can bring to the table, in terms of using their life experience to come up with better solutions to some problems.

“Sometimes they bring in a lot more associations to whatever they’re doing than a younger adult might make, and I think absolutely this could be a source of creativity and wisdom that would give them an advantage,” Bonner-Jackson said.

>>Click here to read more.