A small Japanese study has found evidence that those with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI) show a specific decline in their ability to recognize faces, and this is accompanied by changes in the way they scan faces.
The study involved 18 patients with aMCI and 18 age-matched healthy controls. Participants were tested on their ability to perceive and remember images of faces and houses.
Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a precursor of Alzheimer's disease, although having MCI does not mean you are definitely going to progress to Alzheimer's. A new study suggests that one sign of MCI development might be personality changes.
A large study using data from the famous Framingham Heart Study has compared changes in dementia onset over the last three decades. The study found that over time the age of onset has increased while the length of time spent with dementia has decreased.
Data from more than 17,000 healthy people aged 50 and over has revealed that the more regularly participants engaged with word puzzles, the better they performed on tasks assessing attention, reasoning and memory.
Study participants took part in online cognitive tests, as well as being asked how frequently they did word puzzles such as crosswords. There was a direct relationship between the frequency of word puzzle use and the speed and accuracy of performance on nine cognitive tasks.
Data from the Rush Memory and Aging Project has found that emergency and urgent hospitalizations are associated with an increased rate of cognitive decline in older adults.
Non-elective hospitalizations were associated with an approximately 60% acceleration in the rate of cognitive decline from before hospitalization. Elective hospitalizations, however, were not associated with acceleration in the rate of decline at all.
A Finnish study involving 338 older adults (average age 66) has found that greater muscle strength is associated with better cognitive function.
Muscle strength was measured utilising handgrip strength, three lower body exercises such as leg extension, leg flexion and leg press and two upper body exercises such as chest press and seated row.
Data from over 11,500 participants in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) cohort has found evidence that orthostatic hypotension in middle age may increase the risk of cognitive impairment and dementia 20 years later.
Orthostatic hypotension is the name for the experience of dizziness or light-headedness on standing up. Previous research has suggested an association between orthostatic hypotension and cognitive decline in older adults.
Another warning about supplements comes from a finding that older adults taking more than twice the recommended daily allowance (RDA) of folate were more likely to have peripheral neuropathy if they had a common genetic variant linked to reduced cellular vitamin B12 availability.
B12 deficiency is a common problem for older adults, and those with this gene variant (estimated to occur in one in six Americans) are vulnerable to conditions related to vitamin B12 deficiency even if they consume normal amounts of B12.
The study, involving 171 older adults (60+), found that those with the GG variant of the TCN2 gene were three times more likely to develop peripheral neuropathy. But among those who consumed more than twice the RDA of 800 micrograms of folate, individuals with the gene variant had seven times the risk of peripheral neuropathy compared to those without. There was no significant difference for those consuming less than 800 micrograms of folate a day.
Note that the average daily folate intake for U.S. adults over 50 is in fact more than twice the Recommended Daily Allowance. Moreover, it's estimated that some 35% of Americans take folate supplements.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-10/tuhs-hfi100716.php
Hathairat Sawaengsri, Peter R Bergethon, Wei Qiao Qiu, Tammy M Scott, Paul F Jacques, Jacob Selhub, and Ligi Paul Transcobalamin 776C→G polymorphism is associated with peripheral neuropathy in elderly individuals with high folate intake Am J Clin Nutr 2016 104: 6 1665-1670; First published online October 12, 2016. doi:10.3945/ajcn.116.139030
A review of 39 studies investigating the effect of exercise on cognition in older adults (50+) confirms that physical exercise does indeed improve cognitive function in the over 50s, regardless of their cognitive status. Aerobic exercise, resistance training, multicomponent training and tai chi, all had significant effects. However, exercise sessions needed to be at least 45 minutes and moderate intensity.
A Canadian study involving 40 older adults (59-81), none of whom were aware of any major memory problems, has found that those scoring below 26 on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) dementia screening test also showed shrinking of the anterolateral entorhinal cortex. This brain region is the first affected in the development of Alzheimer's disease. The study found specifically that this area of the brain is involved in configural processing — that is, processing the spatial arrangement of an object's elements.