Beat Alzheimer's
Alzheimer's Prevention Strategies
We are with you on the path that leads to cognitive wellbeing
“If we are going to fight this disease we must do so through the elimination of risk factors”
The Lancet commission.
As Alzheimer’s disease becomes an ever-increasing health problem for our world, most of us are wondering what, if anything, we can do to prevent it. Well, there is something that we should all be doing to make sure that we don’t develop this disease. Both the World Health Organisation and the Lancet medical journal are calling for Alzheimer's prevention strategies to be put in place and for a new brain healthcare approach that focuses on prevention through risk elimination.
Alzheimer's Prevention Strategies
Dementia is not one single disease but a syndrome of many diseases that include Alzheimer’s disease, vascular disease, dementia with Lewy bodies, frontotemporal dementia and others such as Huntington’s disease. Science now knows that there are multiple risk factors and causes of these diseases and what causes the disease for one person may be different from the cause for another. Genetics, age, physical activity, diet, sleep, attitudes, stress levels, exposure to environmental toxins, comorbidities and social interactions can all play a role in mitigating or contributing to, these diseases.
So while this is a very complex group of diseases that is unlikely to have any one single cure, there is a simple approach to protect yourself from them, and although it won’t give a 100% guarantee to prevent all these diseases, it will give a 100% guarantee to reduce your risk of ever developing them.
Protective Pathways
This approach uses what are called ‘Protective Pathways’. These protective pathways work hand-in-hand with our genes, switching off damaging ones, through a system known as epigenetics, thus improving our biological age. This is different from the number on the calendar, our chronological age, but is our actual internal cellular and metabolic age.
Usually how we feel and look is a good indicator of our biological age. So staying biologically younger than our calendar age and keeping our bad genes switched off should be our goal and we do this by enacting ‘protective pathways’.
Certain key lifestyle elements are considered to be protective for general and cognitive health.
Lifestyle plays a crucial role in protecting our health, encompassing a variety of factors that contribute to our overall well-being. Studies show that a healthy lifestyle provides a cognitive reserve that preserves cognitive abilities independent of a build-up of damage. The higher your healthy lifestyle score, as measured by our ‘Healthy Lifestyle Assessment’ the greater your cognitive reserve is likely to be, protecting you against cognitive decline in older years.
Regular Physical Exercise
Exercise boosts the growth of neurons and improves brain processing speeds equivalent to being four years younger. You don’t need to join a gym to get these benefits as all movement is important. In the 'Sharper Brains' course, you will learn simple chair exercises that will not only boost cognitive performance and slow ageing but will also improve your mood and grow the parts of the brain that normally begin to shrink with ageing.
Adequate Sleep
Poor quality sleep is associated with an increase in age-related chronic disorders, but good quality sleep improves immune and brain functions. In 'Sharper Brains' you will learn ways to improve the length and quality of your sleep cycles, boosting your natural defences.
A Healthy Balanced Diet
Science now believes that ‘food as medicine’ treatments could soon become normal. Whether it’s white button mushroom extract for cancer prevention or grape seed extract for its antioxidant boosting potential, more and more studies are finding that certain foods will boost our immune function and build a strong defence against chronic disease. Learn how the MIND and the Green Mediterranean diets slow brain ageing and improve gut health.
Social Interaction
Loneliness and cognitive decline are closely linked, with one impacting the other in a continuous cycle. Engaging in community activities geared toward older adults, such as joining the 'Sharper Brains' course, is a positive way to boost mental and emotional health and change this cycle of decline.
Focused Awareness
Increasing our level of self Awareness through a daily practice of meditation and mindfulness will improve our ability to cope well with adversity and boost our mental resilience, sense of purpose reduce the risk of all-cause mortality.
Our one-day workshop in ‘Mindfulness Based Alzheimer’s Prevention’ will teach you the techniques and practices necessary to increase mental wellbeing and stoicism.
Mental Fitness
Mental exercises are just as important as physical exercises and are a good way to use our brain but we need to do more than just the daily crossword, we should be trying to use all sections of our brain, and this requires a variety of activities. In the 'Sharper Brains' course you will learn about the other ways we can exercise all the regions of our brain on a regular basis and build a strong resilience to cognitive decline.
Stress Management
Chronic stress is a driver of inflammation and ageing across our bodies including our brain. In the ‘Mindfulness Based Alzheimer’s Prevention’ one-day workshop, you will learn stress-reduction techniques that with practice, will help you to thrive and flourish, improving your sense of well-being and strengthening your cognitive resilience.
Got a question about our Alzheimer's Prevention Strategies? Feel free to get in touch.
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