Brain Tumors, seizures, dementia and “Alive Inside”

Had a brain tumor? What about seizures? Worried about them, too? Does Dementia scare the snot out of you?

I have this fear of somebody sticking me in a corner and drooling when I’m too brain damaged from all of the above to know who I am or who my family is.

Surprisingly, it seems like one solace for folks with Alzheimer’s disease is music, especially music that the victim likes. In fact, in this excerpt from an upcoming documentary entitled “Alive Inside,” music reaches, inspires and engages patients in a way that nothing else has been able to do.

I dare you to watch this youtube.com video that’s got over nine million hits and not feel a little chill run up your spine.

John

PS – And here’s a link to the ABC post on all this by Katie Moisse: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/AlzheimersCommunity/alzheimers-disease-music-brings-patients-back-life/story?id=16117602 

Drinking Cocoa = Healthy Brains

Here’s more good news for chocolate lovers, according to an article on the BBC website, “A study of 60 elderly people with no dementia found two cups of cocoa a day improved blood flow to the brain in those who had problems to start with.”

My quick questions was “Does increased blood flow = something good?”

Satisfyingly, the answer is “yes.” According to the article, “Those participants whose blood flow improved also did better on memory tests at the end of the study, the journal Neurology reported.”

This study has been pick up by dozens of websites. Here’s a link to the BBC site where I first saw it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23607879

And here’s a link to the Science Daily site if you prefer a site with slightly more scientific gravitas: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130807204447.htm

Image credit: <a href='http://www.123rf.com/photo_13374317_cup-of-hot-chocolate-cinnamon-sticks-nuts-and-chocolate-on-wooden-table-on-brown-background.html'>serezniy / 123RF Stock Photo</a>

Webinar: The Aging Brain: What's New in Brain Research, Treatment, and Policy

Interested in the aging brain?  What you can do to achieve higher cognitive function as you age? Here’s a link to a webinar posted to the Chicago area Brain Network by Magdalene (Maggie) Rouman, M.A. The webcast was the inaugural event in the Neuroscience and Society Series, presented by the AAAS and the Dana Foundation.

The first speaker is Marilyn S. Albert, PhD, Professor of Neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The second speaker is Reisa Sperling, M.D., M.MSc. She is a neurologist, specializing in dementia and imaging research and an Associate Professor in Neurology at the Harvard Medical School. The third speaker is Richard J. Hodes, M.D., the Director of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

If my notes from the Ms. Albert are correct, there are four factors that can lead to higher cognitive function as we age:

Physical activity

Mental activity

Social engagement

Vascular risks

I won’t even try to summarize a teeny bit of the Dr. Sperling’s presentation because I didn’t understand any of it.

That doesn’t mean, though, that you won’t understand it.  Here’s the link and see for yourself: http://dana.org/events/detail.aspx?id=39130&goback=.gmp_4196068.gde_4196068_member_126107999

The third presentation is policy-oriented, i.e. now that we know about the aging of our US population and the increase in dementia, what should we or can we do about it.

Preventive Eating from the AARP

There are few words scarier to boomers than dementia.  For those of you that haven’t had to worry about this, Dementia is a loss of brain function that occurs with certain diseases. It affects memory, thinking, language, judgment, and behavior. And if that weren’t bad enough, most types of dementia is non-reversible.

Probably the most common type of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease.

Frighteningly enough, an early symptom of dementia is forgetfulness.  Now does that mean you should panic when you can’t find the house keys? Absolutely! Run around yelling and screaming  at the top of your lungs.  I do.  It might not stop dementia, but it’s a terrific workout.

You can also buy into the AARP recommendations for eating foods.  A recent article on the AARP website cites seven food groups as ways of lowering your risk of dementia.  Those seven groups are chock full of:

• B-complex vitamins like beans and green peas
• Vitamin C like citrus fruits
• Vitamin E, e.g. almonds
• Omega 3s and cold-water fish are a great source

The posting also recommends:

• Eating spinach – for lots of good reasons
• Drinking coffee (hurray!)
• And getting some sunshine (some, not too much)

This seems doable and, if you use this as an excuse to stop eating fatty foods, so much the better. You have my permission, though, to continue to run around yelling and screaming.

http://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-03-2012/foods-may-lower-dementia-risk-slideshow.html

Brain Heresy? Middle-Aged Brains are Better?

I’ve just reread Barbara Strauch’s book, The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain, and found it fascinating. Of course the real reason I like it is that it gives me hope that my cognitive skills aren't going to hell in a hand-basket right-away.

This book is an excellent myth debunker. That old myth about being born with a fixed # of brain cells and you can’t ever make anymore?  Debunked.

Worried about your cognitive skills on a long skid into geezer-dom? Debunked. For starters, she shows a number of studies that demonstrate that, on the whole, brains are functioning better in middle-age than they do when younger. According to these studies, the middle-aged brain is better at:

• Vocabulary – how many words you can recognize and find synonyms for
• Verbal memory – how many words you can remember
• Spatial orientation – how well you can tell what an object would look like rotated 180 degrees
• Inductive reasoning - how well you can solve logical problems

Middle-aged folks tend to lose out to younger folks in terms of:

• Number ability – how quickly you can do math
• Perceptual speed – how fast you can process input

Wait a minute, what about the “tip-of-the-tongue” (“TOTS”) syndrome?  That embarrassing moment when you see somebody you know walking towards you at a party, but you can’t remember their name? Or what about those misplaced car keys that you spend endless time looking for?

Sorry, that really is happening to you and it ain’t getting better. She explains the problem as a “retrieval, not a storage, problem” which I found strangely helpful.

I also want to emphasize a very clear finding of her research review: “Keep moving and keep your wits.”  That’s a chapter title which really delves into the whole connection between brain health and exercise. The connection is strong.  The breakthrough research came from a study at Columbia University where scientists were able to watch, in real time, the growth of new neurons in mice. She quotes a scientist from that event who said, “To see so clearly, new brain cells that came with exercise, it was impossible to ignore. My colleagues started putting on their sneakers.”

Less clear is the connection between brain super foods, and she spends significant time examining this.

I like her writing. I like her thoroughness. I like her commitment to the literature. And I found a copy in my local library.