Older dogs who sleep badly may have dementia, study says | CNN



CNN
 — 

In a veterinary lab in North Carolina, Woofus, a 15-year-old basset hound mix, is allowing researchers to attach an electroencephalogram, or EEG, electrodes to his head before padding off to a dark, cozy room for an afternoon nap.

During his snooze, the study team will analyze Woofus’ brain waves to judge the quality of his sleep. Woofus has canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome, or CCDS, the doggie disorder that’s similar to Alzheimer’s disease in people. The elderly dog’s owners say he is struggling to get enough rest at night.

“Just like humans with Alzheimer’s disease, dogs with CCDS experience sleep disruptions, such as insomnia and sleep fragmentation,” said veterinarian Dr. Natasha Olby, a professor of neurology, neurosurgery and gerontology at North Carolina State College of Veterinary Medicine in Raleigh.

Woofus isn’t the only sleep-deprived dog in this study. On other days in the clinic, Jake, a 13-year-old pointer, and Coco, a 12-year-old dachshund, among others, might be taking a siesta while researchers peer inside their brains.

“Owners of dogs with CCDS report their dogs suffer from difficulty sleeping at night, increased sleeping during the day or both, as well as pacing and vocalizations at night,” Olby said. “This can be very hard on the dog’s owners — not only are they worried for their pet, their sleep is also significantly disrupted.”

To find out whether sleep problems in dogs indicate early signs of dementia as they do in people, Olby and her team turned to a group of senior dogs enrolled in an ongoing study testing antiaging supplements. The dogs visit twice a year “and do all kinds of really fun cognitive testing,” she said. “They really enjoy it and like the handlers they work with.”

To be considered for the antiaging study, the dog must have lived more than 75% of the expected life span for their breed or mix of breeds. A dog also could not be crippled by arthritis or going blind, as the pet needed to be able to perform tasks designed to test their cognitive capabilities.

A dog might be asked, for example, to find a treat hidden under a cup or a snack inside a cylinder in which one end had been closed by a researcher. By repeating the tasks at the clinic every six months, any decline in the dog’s mental agility or performance can be tracked.

Woofus, 15-year-old basset hound mix, plays

For the new study measuring a dog’s brain waves during sleep, researchers used a form of electroencephalogram called polysomnography, used in sleep clinics to diagnose sleep problems in people.

“It’s the gold standard method to look at what the brain is doing during sleep,” Olby said, adding this is the first canine study to apply the same technology used on humans.

“We glue these electrodes on with a really great conductive glue that’s water soluble. Then we just wash it off afterwards,” she said. “We don’t use anywhere near as many electrodes as you see on people in a sleep lab, because dogs have far less cortex and surface area to cover.”

Already at ease with the staff, it wasn’t too difficult to train 28 senior dogs to wear electrodes and walk around with dangling wires without complaint, she said.

Jake, a 13-year-old pointer, was one of 28 dogs trained to sleep with EEG electrodes.

To make the dogs more comfortable during their siestas, owners bring their dogs’ beds from home, which are placed in a protected room with white noise.

“Staff sit with them while they nap to make sure that they’re not trying to pull out or eat the electrodes or do anything that might hurt them,” Olby said.

When sleeping brain waves were compared with a dog’s cognitive testing, researchers found that dogs with greater dementia spent less time in deep and REM sleep, just as people do. The study was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science.

“Dogs that did worse on our memory tests had levels of REM sleep which were not as deep as they should be,” Olby said. “We found the same when it came to deep sleep.”

While no one knows the exact mechanism at work — either in people or in dogs — research like this study may help scientists better understand the process and find ways to treat it, Olby said.

“There’s a possibility we might be able to identify an early signature of change on the EEG that can tell us, ‘Hey, things are starting to slide.’ Because with a chronic neurodegenerative process, of course we’d love to be able to intervene sooner rather than later.”

In the meantime, there are medications for anxiety and melatonin for sleep that veterinarians can prescribe as a dog ages, Olby said. And as with people, diet and exercise appears to be a factor.

“There’s been some very nice studies showing diets that are enriched in flavonoids and antioxidants and medium-chain fatty acids could possibly slow the development of dementia in dogs,” she said. “It’s just like people — if you can eat a Mediterranean diet and do your exercise, you’re going to do better.”

Doggie dementia is a worrisome reality for many senior dogs. Research has found that by 11 or 12 years of age, 28% of dogs had mild and 10% had severe cognitive impairment. By the time the dogs reached age 15, the risk had risen to 68% for mild and 35% for severe cognitive impairment. A 2022 study found the odds of canine cognitive dysfunction increased by 52% with each year of age, Olby said.

Pet owners can look for signs that their dog’s mental functions are declining. According to Olby, vets use an acronym called DISHA-AL, which stands for disorientation, interaction changes, sleep/wake cycle alterations, house soiling; activity changes (increased or decreased); and anxiety and learning & memory.

“One of the earliest signs is you’ll start to see a little confusion just like you do with people, they suddenly start to make some mistakes and things you wouldn’t expect them to do. Very similar to us,” Olby said.

Dogs may also lose learned behaviors, or forget their house training and begin to have unintentional accidents around the house, she added.

“A classic problem is wandering around and getting lost under the table or something — they just can’t process the information and figure out where they are. Changes in sleep cycle, increased anxiety, all of these things are classic signs of dementia,” she said.

Don’t assume that is what is wrong with your dog, however. Just like in people, other health problems such as metabolic disease, urinary tract infections or even brain tumors can mimic classic signs of dementia.

“High blood pressure can make dogs anxious, for example,” Olby said, “so a vet needs to thoroughly check the dog to rule out disease.”

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Regular internet use may be linked to lower dementia risk in older adults, study says | CNN



CNN
 — 

If your parents or grandparents ask you how to post on Instagram or how to send a birthday message to a Facebook friend, a new study suggests you might want to help them – not just to be nice but because getting them online may help their brain health, too.

A study published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society suggested that older people who regularly used the internet were less likely to develop dementia.

The researchers saw this association after about eight years tracking 18,154 adults between the ages of 50 and 65 who did not have dementia when the study period began.

The adults were a part of the Health and Retirement Study, a multidisciplinary collection of data from a representative sample of people in the US that is gathered by the National Institute on Aging and the Social Security Administration.

Each of the participants was asked a simple question: “Do you regularly use the World Wide Web, or the Internet, for sending and receiving e-mail or for any other purpose, such as making purchases, searching for information, or making travel reservations?”

People who used the internet at the start of the study had about half the risk of dementia as people who were not regular users.

The researchers also looked at how often these adults were online, from not at all to more than eight hours a day. Those who used the internet for about two hours or less a day had the lowest risk of dementia compared with those that didn’t use the internet, who had a “notably higher estimated risk.”

The researchers noted that people who were online six to eight hours a day had a higher risk of dementia, but that finding wasn’t statistically significant, they said, and more research is needed.

Scientists still don’t know what causes dementia, so the new research can’t pinpoint the exact connection between internet usage and brain health. Study co-author Dr. Virginia W. Chang has a few ideas.

“Online engagement may help to develop and maintain cognitive reserve, which can in turn compensate for brain aging and reduce the risk of dementia,” said Chang, an associate professor of global public health at New York University’s School of Global Public Health.

The study also did not look at what people were exploring online. Although the internet is full of cat videos and conspiracy theories, it can also be intellectually stimulating, and some studies have shown that intellectual stimulation may help prevent dementia. A 2020 study found an association between cognitively stimulating jobs and a lower risk of dementia, for example.

As people age, it’s natural for brain processing speeds to slow a little, and it may get harder to remember what’s on all those open browser tabs on your computer. But in a healthy brain, routine memory and knowledge remains pretty stable. People with dementia have trouble with routine brain functions like making new memories, solving problems and completing normal tasks.

About 6.2 million people 65 and older have Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. That number is expected to grow exponentially as baby boomers age.

“Overall, this is important research. It identifies another potentially modifiable factor that might influence dementia risk,” said Dr. Claire Sexton, the Alzheimer’s Association’s senior director of scientific programs and outreach, who was not involved in the new study. “But we wouldn’t want to read too much into this study in isolation. It doesn’t establish cause and effect.”

Beyond medications, experts have been looking for ways to help people keep dementia at bay.

The Alzheimer’s Association is working on the US Pointer Study, a two-year clinical trial to pinpoint exactly what lifestyle interventions may lower a person’s risk of dementia.

Risk factors like family history and age can’t be changed, but scientists think there are some healthy behaviors that can reduce the risk of this kind of cognitive decline.

Lifestyle factors like exercise, getting enough sleep, maintaining a healthy weight, keeping blood pressure in check, managing blood sugar, quitting smoking and staying engaged with others may help. Internet surfing isn’t one of the official activities listed by the CDC, but the new study adds to the growing body of evidence that suggests more research could better establish this connection.

The new research isn’t the first to find that the use of the internet may help reduce cognitive decline. One 2020 study found only a smaller cognitive decline in male internet users. Others have not seen a gender difference.

In the latest study, the difference in risk between regular users and those who did not use the internet regularly did not vary by gender, level of education, or race or ethnicity.

Some studies have also shown a benefit to training older adults on computers and have suggested that the internet can positively connect them to others and help them learn information or skills.

Research also suggests that most older adults most frequently use the internet for basic tasks like email, news or online banking. But a growing number are learning newer social platforms like BeReal or dancing and singing on TikTok. And learning new skills may be protective against dementia, studies suggest.

Older adults’ use of social networking sites can also increase their connections to other people and reduce isolation. Some studies have shown that older people who were lonely were three times more likely to develop dementia than those who said they felt socially connected to others.

“We need further evidence, not just from observational studies like this one but also interventional studies,” Sexton said. That way, doctors might someday treat people for dementia like they do with heart disease: by suggesting lifestyle changes in addition to medication.

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The cost of senior care is rising while caregivers are ‘drowning’ without help | CNN



CNN
 — 

For most of her life, Tammy La Barbera has been taking care of someone other than herself. First, it was her two children. Then, it was her brother and father, who both died after being diagnosed with cancer. Now, Tammy is taking care of her 90-year-old mother, Ada, who was diagnosed with dementia five years ago.

In recent months, Ada’s condition deteriorated so quickly that Tammy resigned from her job as an event manager to become a full-time caregiver.

“I don’t have help here, and I know it’s going to get worse,” she said.

Tammy, 53, struggles to provide her mother with the care she needs and would like to place her in a memory care facility equipped to handle the mood swings and outbursts that her mother has due to her condition. But Tammy says she doesn’t expect to ever have enough money to pay for that care.

Recently, she said, she looked into an assisted living facility near her home in Murrieta, California. She says placing her mother at the facility – or others like it – would cost between $7,000 and $10,000 a month out-of-pocket.

Across the country, millions of caregivers like Tammy are looking after a loved one – a relative or a friend. About 53 million US adults are caregivers, according to a 2020 report from AARP.

Sixty-three percent of US caregivers who look after adults said the person they were looking after needed care because of “long-term physical conditions,” the report says.

Since her mother’s diagnosis, Tammy’s life has been turned upside-down.

Ada cannot bathe herself or cook for herself. Most days, she doesn’t even remember who her daughter is.

“All her daily duties are done by me,” Tammy said, caring for her mother all day is like being a prisoner in her own home.

Sooner or later, she said, she will have to move her mother to a long-term care facility and do whatever she can to pay for it.

“I know that I’m reaching a crossroads with my mom’s care, and I’m trying to do this as long as I can,” Tammy said. “But I know the way things are going, and if she’s progressing pretty rapidly, I’m not going to have a choice.”

Ada La Barbera was a teacher for 20 years, so she gets a pension check each month. Tammy puts that money, along with her mother’s monthly Social Security checks, toward bills.

It’s just over $3,300 a month, and along with Tammy’s dwindling savings, it’s barely enough to keep them afloat, Tammy says. She can barely afford her rent.

It’s because of her financial struggles that Tammy has been putting off long-term care for her mother.

Where Tammy and Ada live in California, a home health aide would cost about $137 for one hour of care, according to an online calculator from AARP.

“When you’re on a fixed income, you can’t afford that,” Tammy said. “So I don’t have the luxury to do that.”

A long-term care facility is even more expensive. On average, it costs $10,830 a month to stay at a nursing home and $5,806 per month for an assisted living facility, according to the nonprofit National Investment Center for Senior Housing and Care.

Then there is memory care, where Tammy says her mother belongs.

Memory care facilities are the fastest-growing sector of the senior housing market, according to the National Investment Center. On average, memory care costs just over $7,500 a month, center COO Chuck Harry says.

These facilities offer more hands-on care for people with dementia. They can include special features like locked units that prevent wandering patients from leaving the facility unattended and enclosed outdoor spaces where patients can move about safely.

A nurse comes to see Ada at home every other week. During that 40-minute visit, Ada’s vitals are checked, and her medications are adjusted. Those visits are covered by Medicare, Tammy says.

Medicare is a medical health insurance program that is for people 65 years or older. But Medicare does not cover the cost of a long-term care facility.

And although Ada and Tammy are on a fixed income, Ada doesn’t qualify for other federal safety net programs like Medicaid because Tammy says they are not considered low-income.

For middle-income families, Medicaid goes into effect only after a family has gone through the process of “spending down” their assets until they qualify for the program.

“That is usually the path of anyone going into a nursing home for the long term: spending your own money – which is all out of pocket – and then reaching a Medicaid level of eligibility,” said Susan Reinhard, senior vice president and director of the AARP Public Policy Institute, noting that each state has its own Medicaid program and process.

Until a family qualifies for Medicaid, the program will only cover the medical costs of a stay at a long-term facility, not room and board.

Caroline Pearson, the lead author of a landmark 2019 demographic study called “The Forgotten Middle,” says most middle-income Americans find themselves in a position where they are too “wealthy” to receive Medicaid coverage for long-term care services but too “poor” to afford the out-of-pocket costs of that care.

So why does putting a loved one in a nursing home or an assisted living facility cost so much? Providing long-term care services is expensive, Pearson says, adding that the senior housing industry requires a large workforce of nurses and staff to support it. That is also expensive.

Additionally, as seniors sell their homes and move into these facilities, long-term care facilitators are essentially providing housing, she said. And housing is not cheap.

The senior housing industry also caters to a high-income population, according to Pearson, who is now executive director of the Peterson Center on Healthcare.

“The fit and finish at the buildings … [residents] expect to be really high-end. The amount of amenities and services that are part of that senior housing property … they expect to be high-end,” she said. “The market has seen good returns and then replicated that model.”

And the demand for high-quality, long-term care is only expected to go up as the baby boomer generation continues to age, according to Pearson.

“Most people don’t begin to need long-term care services until between 75 and 85. And so as the baby boomers hit those ages, that is where we’re going to see that demand really explode,” she said.

According to the US Census Bureau, baby boomers – people born from 1946 to 1964 – will all be over the age of 65 by 2030. The oldest members of that generation will be 84 at that point.

In 2019, there were about 8 million middle-income seniors – people 75 and older – living in the United States, Pearson says in her study.

She projects that there will be 14.4 million middle-income seniors in the US by 2029, with 60% expected to have mobility limitations and 20% expected to have “high health care and functional needs.”

“We are going to [have] double the number of middle-income seniors when the baby boomers age,” Pearson said. “Fewer of those baby boomers are going to have spouses or children who live nearby to provide unpaid caregiving support.”

Most family caregivers are spouses or middle-age daughters, the study notes.

At the end of the day, Pearson says, many Americans don’t think about aging until it’s staring them in the face.

“People [think] that they will live healthy and independently until they die, and sadly, that’s just statistically very unlikely for most people,” she said.

Tammy, with her parents and brother, says her family thought they were prepared for the future.

Tammy says her family thought they were prepared for the future.

In 1965, Ada married Tammy’s father, Peter “Jazz” La Barbera, an accountant.

“My dad was a very, very good saver, and he did have a little bit of savings,” Tammy said. “He was set just for the future, not for anything unexpected.”

In 1970, Tammy was born in Queens. She and her older brother, Peter Jr., grew up an hour outside New York City.

“We had a small house, and we lived in that house our whole lives, and … we were the perfect family,” Tammy said.

She eventually moved to California, where she had two kids. Her parents followed, along with her brother and his wife.

Tammy says the physical and mental toll of caring for her husband and son kickstarted Ada's health problems.

But soon after the move, Peter Jr. was diagnosed with cancer, and he died a year later. Two years after that, Tammy’s father received a cancer diagnosis and died within seven weeks.

Tammy believes that the physical and financial toll of taking care of her son and husband kickstarted her mother’s health problems. Shortly after her husband died, Ada had a minor stroke and was diagnosed with dementia.

“It’s almost like her grief was so overwhelming. Especially losing her son. I don’t think her brain had the capacity to deal with anything else anymore,” Tammy said.

The stress associated with taking care of a loved one full-time, or even part-time, can have negative consequences, research has shown.

Some of the physical symptoms associated with taking care of someone with dementia include higher levels of depression and anxiety, worse self-reported physical health, compromised immune function and increased risk of early death, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.

Over half (53%) of caregivers indicate that a decline in their health compromises their ability to provide care, according to the CDC.

“I have sacrificed 10 years of my life being a caretaker, and I don’t have a life,” Tammy said. “It’s an honor to take care of my mother. But doing this every single day … it’s a lot.”

Tammy is preparing for her own future by taking part in genetic testing that will tell her whether she is more likely to develop dementia like her mother.

“I would like to prepare as much as I can, whether it’s medication or adjusting my life,” she said. “I just don’t want to put my kids through this.”

She would also like to see changes to the system.

Pearson says the solution to the cost issue is not simple and will probably be resolved only through a combination of incremental Medicaid expansion, changes to the senior housing industry and federal subsidies.

AARP’s Reinhard says tax credits for family caregivers could help people like Tammy get a break. Employers could also help by supporting workers who need to stop working to care for a family member or friend.

In September, the US Department of Health and Human Services, through its Administration for Community Living, announced a national strategy aimed at supporting family caregivers, highlighting nearly 350 actions the federal government will take.

The strategy also includes 150 actions that it says local governments, communities and private businesses can adopt to help build a more supportive system.

“Supporting family caregivers is an urgent public health issue, exacerbated by the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a news release. “This national strategy recognizes the critical role family caregivers play in a loved one’s life.”

Gal Wettstein, a senior research economist for the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, says it would be beneficial for middle-income Americans to speak to a financial adviser as early as possible and transfer assets to a family member if they think they might need to enter a long-term care facility in the near future.

This way, if their only option is to spend down their assets to become eligible for Medicaid, they hit that eligibility sooner.

Long-term care insurance is another option, but experts say it’s rarely sold anymore because it is typically more expensive than other kinds of insurance.

Pearson says Americans can plan ahead by investing in long-term care insurance in their 40s for it to benefit them when they will most likely need it, in their 80s.

Wettstein also recommends long-term care insurance.

“[Long-term care insurance] plans are getting harder and harder to sign, but they do still exist. Some insurers will still sell them,” he said.

Ultimately, covering the cost of senior care comes down to families and how much they save for the future, until changes are made by senior housing providers and policy makers.

“We are so far away from having any sort of swift and universal solution,” Pearson said.

For now, Ada is on a waitlist for a spot at a skilled-nursing home about an hour from where they live. If she moves there, her cost of living might be partially covered through a Medicaid program.

Tammy was told that Ada is one of more than 2,000 people waiting for a spot.

“We’re drowning. We’re care workers, and we’re drowning,” Tammy said. “We don’t have help.”

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Older people with anxiety frequently don’t get help. Here’s why | CNN



CNN
 — 

Anxiety is the most common psychological disorder affecting adults in the United States. In older people, it’s associated with considerable distress as well as ill health, diminished quality of life and elevated rates of disability.

Yet when the US Preventive Services Task Force, an independent, influential panel of experts, suggested last year that adults be screened for anxiety, it left out one group — people 65 and older.

The major reason the task force cited in draft recommendations issued in September: “(T)he current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of screening for anxiety” in all older adults. (Final recommendations are expected later this year.)

The task force noted that questionnaires used to screen for anxiety may be unreliable for older adults. Screening entails evaluating people who don’t have obvious symptoms of worrisome medical or psychological conditions.

“We recognize that many older adults experience mental health conditions like anxiety,” and “we are calling urgently for more research,” said Lori Pbert, associate chief of the preventive and behavioral medicine division at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School and a former task force member who worked on the anxiety recommendations.

This “we don’t know enough yet” stance doesn’t sit well with some experts who study and treat older people with anxiety. Dr. Carmen Andreescu, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, called the task force’s position baffling because “it’s well-established that anxiety isn’t uncommon in older adults and effective treatments exist.”

“I cannot think of any danger in identifying anxiety in older adults, especially because doing so has no harm and we can do things to reduce it,” said Dr. Helen Lavretsky, a psychology professor at UCLA.

In a recent editorial in JAMA Psychiatry, Andreescu and Lavretsky noted that only about one-third of seniors with generalized anxiety disorder — intense, persistent worry about everyday matters — receive treatment. That’s concerning, they said, considering evidence of links between anxiety and stroke, heart failure, coronary artery disease, autoimmune illness and neurodegenerative disorders such as dementia.

Other forms of anxiety commonly undetected and untreated in older adults include phobias (such as a fear of dogs), obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder (a fear of being assessed and judged by others) and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The smoldering disagreement over screening calls attention to the significance of anxiety in later life — a concern heightened during the Covid-19 pandemic, which magnified stress and worry among older people. Here’s what you should know.

According to a book chapter published in 2020, authored by Andreescu and a colleague, up to 15% of people 65 and older who live outside nursing homes or other facilities have a diagnosable anxiety condition.

As many as half have symptoms of anxiety — irritability, worry, restlessness, decreased concentration, sleep changes, fatigue, avoidant behaviors — that can be distressing but don’t justify a diagnosis, the study noted.

Most senior citizens with anxiety have struggled with this condition since earlier in life, but the way it manifests may change over time. Specifically, older adults tend to be more anxious about issues such as illness, the loss of family and friends, retirement and cognitive declines, experts said. Only a fraction develop anxiety after turning 65.

Older adults often minimize symptoms of anxiety, thinking “this is what getting older is like” rather than “this is a problem that I should do something about,” Andreescu said.

Also, they are more likely than younger adults to report “somatic” complaints — physical symptoms such as dizziness, fatigue, headaches, chest pain, shortness of breath and gastrointestinal problems — that can be difficult to distinguish from underlying medical conditions, according to Gretchen Brenes, a professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Some types of anxiety or anxious behaviors — notably, hoarding and fear of falling — are much more common in older adults, but questionnaires meant to identify anxiety don’t typically ask about those issues, said Dr. Jordan Karp, chair of psychiatry at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson.

When older adults voice concerns, medical providers too often dismiss them as normal, given the challenges of aging, said Dr. Eric Lenze, head of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the third author of the recent JAMA Psychiatry editorial.

Simple questions can help identify whether an older adult needs to be evaluated for anxiety, he and other experts suggested: Do you have recurrent worries that are hard to control? Are you having trouble sleeping? Have you been feeling more irritable, stressed or nervous? Are you having trouble with concentration or thinking? Are you avoiding things you normally like to do because you’re wrapped up in your worries?

Stephen Snyder, 67, who lives in Zelienople, Pennsylvania, and was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder in March 2019, would answer “yes” to many of these queries. “I’m a Type A personality and I worry a lot about a lot of things — my family, my finances, the future,” he told me. “Also, I’ve tended to dwell on things that happened in the past and get all worked up.”

Psychotherapy — particularly cognitive behavioral therapy, which helps people address persistent negative thoughts — is generally considered the first line of anxiety treatment in older adults. In an evidence review for the task force, researchers noted that this type of therapy helps reduce anxiety in older people seen in primary care settings.

Also recommended, Lenze noted, is relaxation therapy, which can involve deep breathing exercises, massage or music therapy, yoga and progressive muscle relaxation.

Because mental health practitioners, especially those who specialize in geriatric mental health, are extremely difficult to find, primary care physicians often recommend medications to ease anxiety.

Two categories of drugs — antidepressants known as SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) and SNRIs (serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors) — are typically prescribed, and both appear to help to older adults, experts said.

Frequently prescribed to older adults, but to be avoided by them, are benzodiazepines, a class of sedating medications such as Valium, Ativan, Xanax, and Klonopin. The American Geriatrics Society has warned medical providers not to use these in older adults, except when other therapies have failed, because they are addictive and significantly increase the risk of hip fractures, falls and other accidents, and short-term cognitive impairments.

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Dementia risk rises if you live with chronic pain, study says | CNN



CNN
 — 

Chronic pain, such as arthritis, cancer or back pain, lasting for over three months, raises the risk of cognitive decline and dementia, a new study found.

The hippocampus, a brain structure highly associated with learning and memory, aged by about a year in a 60-year-old person who had one site of chronic pain compared with people with no pain.

When pain was felt in two places in the body, the hippocampus shrank even more — the equivalent of just over two years of aging, according to estimates in the study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS.

“In other words, the hippocampal (grey matter volume) in a 60-y-old individual with (chronic pain) at two body sites was similar to the volume of (pain free) controls aged 62-y-old,” wrote corresponding author Tu Yiheng and his colleagues. Tu is a professor of psychology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

The risk rose as the number of pain sites in the body increased, the study found. Hippocampal volume was nearly four times smaller in people with pain in five or more body sites compared with those with only two — the equivalent of up to eight years of aging.

“Asking people about any chronic pain conditions, and advocating for their care by a pain specialist, may be a modifiable risk factor against cognitive decline that we can proactively address,” said Alzheimer’s disease researcher Dr. Richard Isaacson, a preventive neurologist at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases of Florida. He was not involved in the new study.

The study analyzed data from over 19,000 people who had undergone brain scans as part of the UK Biobank, a long-term government study of over 500,000 UK participants between the ages of 40 and 69.

People with multiple sites of body pain performed worse than people with no pain on seven of 11 cognitive tasks, the study found. In contrast, people with only one pain site performed worse on only one cognitive task — the ability to remember to perform a task in the future.

The study controlled for a variety of contributing conditions — age, alcohol use, body mass, ethnicity, genetics, history of cancer, diabetes, vascular or heart problems, medications, psychiatric symptoms and smoking status, to name a few. However, the study did not control for levels of exercise, Isaacson said.

“Exercise is the #1 most powerful tool in the fight against cognitive decline and dementia,” he said via email. “People affected by multisite chronic pain may be less able to adhere to regular physical activity as one potential mechanism for increased dementia risk.”

Equally important is a link between chronic pain and inflammation, Isaacson said. A 2019 review of studies found pain triggers immune cells called microglia to create neuroinflammation that may lead to changes in brain connectivity and function.

People with higher levels of pain were also more likely to have reduced gray matter in other brain areas that impact cognition, such as the prefrontal cortex and frontal lobe — the same areas attacked by Alzhemier’s disease. In fact, over 45% of Alzheimer’s patients live with chronic pain, according to a 2016 study cited by the review.

The study was also not able to determine sleep deficits — chronic pain often makes getting a good night’s sleep difficult. A 2021 study found sleeping less than six hours a night in midlife raises the risk of dementia by 30%.

Globally, low back pain is a leading cause of years lived with disability, with neck pain coming in at No. 4, according to the 2016 Global Burden of Disease Study. Arthritis, nerve damage, pain from cancer and injuries are other leading causes.

Researchers estimate over 30% of people worldwide suffer with chronic pain: “Pain is the most common reason people seek health care and the leading cause of disability in the world,” according to articles published in the journal The Lancet in 2021.

In the United States alone, at least 1 in 5 people, or some 50 million Americans, live with long-lasting pain, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nearly 11 million Americans suffer from high-impact chronic pain, defined as pain lasting over three months that’s “accompanied by at least one major activity restriction, such as being unable to work outside the home, go to school, or do household chores,” according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.

Chronic pain has been linked to anxiety, depression, restrictions in mobility and daily activities, dependence on opioids, increased health care costs, and poor quality of life. A 2019 study estimated about 5 million to 8 million Americans were using opioids to manage chronic pain.

Pain management programs typically involve a number of specialists to find the best relief for symptoms while providing support for the emotional and mental burden of pain, according to John Hopkins Medicine.

Medical treatment can include over-the-counter and prescription medications to stop the pain cycle and ease inflammation. Injections of steroids may also help. Antidepressants increase the amount of serotonin, which controls part of the pain pathway in the brain. Applying brief bursts of electricity to the muscles and nerve endings is another treatment.

Therapies such as massage and whirlpool immersion and exercises may be suggested by occupational and physical therapists. Hot and cold treatments and acupuncture may help as well.

Psychologists who specialize in rehabilitation may recommend cognitive and relaxation techniques such as meditation, tai chi and yoga that can take the mind off fixating on pain. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a key psychological treatment for pain.

Going on an anti-inflammatory diet may be suggested, such as cutting back on trans fats, sugars and other processed foods. Weight loss may be helpful as well, especially for back and knee pain, according to Johns Hopkins.

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Alcohol and dementia: Study finds benefits in minimal drinking, but it’s complicated | CNN



CNN
 — 

Keeping alcohol consumption to one or two drinks a day lessened the odds of developing dementia, according to a study of nearly 4 million South Koreans.

However, drinking more than two drinks a day increased that risk, according to the study published Monday in the journal JAMA Network Open.

“We found that maintaining mild to moderate alcohol consumption as well as reducing alcohol consumption from a heavy to moderate level were associated with a decreased risk of dementia,” said first author Dr. Keun Hye Jeon, an assistant professor at CHA Gumi Medical Center, CHA University in Gumi, South Korea, in an email.

But don’t rush to the liquor store, experts say.

“This study was well done and is extremely robust with 4 million subjects, but we should be cautious not to over interpret the findings,” said Alzheimer’s researcher Dr. Richard Isaacson, a preventive neurologist at the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases of Florida. He was not involved in the new study.

Alcohol use can be a risk factor for breast and other cancers, and consuming too much can contribute to digestive problems, heart and liver disease, hypertension, stroke, and a weak immune system over time, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There are red flags for Alzheimer’s as well. For example, if a person has one or two copies of the APOE4 gene variant, which raises your risk of developing the mind-wasting disease, drinking is not a good choice, Isaacson said.

“Alcohol has been shown to be harmful for brain outcomes in people with that risk gene — and about 25% of the US population carries one copy of APOE4,” he said.

The new study examined the medical records of people covered by the Korean National Health Insurance Service (NHIS), which provides a free health exam twice a year to insured South Koreans who are 40 and older. In addition to doing various tests, examiners asked about each person’s drinking, smoking and exercise habits.

The study looked at the data collected in 2009 and 2011 and categorized people by their self-reported drinking levels. If a person said they drank less than 15 grams (approximately 0.5 ounces) of alcohol a day, they were considered “mild” drinkers.

In the United States, a standard drink contains 14 grams of alcohol, which is roughly the same as 12 ounces of regular beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits.

If study participants told doctors they drank 15 to 29.9 grams a day — the equivalent of two standards drinks in the US — the researchers categorized them as “moderate” drinkers. And if people said they drank over 30 grams, or three or more drinks a day, researchers considered them “heavy” drinkers.

Researchers also looked at whether people sustained or changed the amount they drank between 2009 and 2011, Jeon said.

“By measuring alcohol consumption at two time points, we were able to study the relationship between reducing, ceasing, maintaining and increasing alcohol consumption and incident dementia,” he said.

The team then compared that data to medical records in 2018 — seven or eight years later — to see if anyone studied had been diagnosed with dementia.

After adjusting for age, sex, smoking, exercise level and other demographic factors, researchers found people who said they drank at a mild level over time — about a drink a day — were 21% less likely to develop dementia than people who never drank.

People who said they continued to drink at moderate level, or about two drinks a day, were 17% less likely to develop dementia, the study found.

“One has to be cautious when interpreting studies using medical records. They can be fraught with challenges in how diseases are coded and studied,” Isaacson said. “Any anytime you ask people to recall their behaviors, such as drinking, it leaves room for memory errors.”

The positive pattern did not continue as drinking increased. People who drank heavily — three or more drinks a day — were 8% more likely to be diagnosed with dementia, the study found.

If heavy drinkers reduced their drinking over time to a moderate level, their risk of being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s fell by 12%, and the risk of all-cause dementia fell by 8%.

However, people aren’t very good at judging how much alcohol they are drinking, Isaacson said.

“People don’t really monitor their pours of wine, for example,” Isaacson said. “They may think they are drinking a standard-sized glass of wine, but it’s really a glass and a half every time. Drink two of those pours and they’ve had three glasses of wine. That’s no longer mild or moderate consumption.”

In addition, too many people who think they are moderate drinkers do all of their drinking on weekends. Binge drinking is on the rise worldwide, even among adults, studies show.

“If someone downs five drinks on Saturday and Sunday that’s 10 drinks a week so that would qualify as a moderate alcohol intake,” Isaacson said. “To me, that is not that is not the same as having a glass of wine five days a week with a meal, which slows consumption.”

The new study also found that starting to drink at a mild level was associated with a decreased risk of all-cause dementia and Alzheimer’s, “which, to our knowledge, has never been reported in previous studies,” the authors wrote.

However, “none of the existing health guidelines recommends starting alcohol drinking,” Jeon said, adding that since the study was observational, no cause and effect can be determined.

“Our findings regarding a initiation of mild alcohol consumption cannot be directly translated into clinical recommendations, thereby warranting additional studies to confirm these associations further,” Jeon said.

A study published in March 2022 found that just one pint of beer or glass of wine a day can shrink the overall volume of the brain, with the damage increasing as the number of daily drinks rises.

On average, people between 40 and 69 who drank a pint of beer or 6-ounce glass of wine per day for a month had brains that appeared two years older than those who only drank half of a beer, according to that previous study.

“I’ve never personally suggested someone to start drinking moderate amounts of alcohol if they were abstinent,” Isaacson said. “But there’s really not a one-size-fits-all approach towards counseling a patient on alcohol consumption.”

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1 in 10 Americans over 65 have dementia, study finds | CNN





CNN
 — 

One in 10 Americans over 65 had dementia, while 22% experienced mild cognitive impairment, the earliest stage of the slow slide into senility, according to a new study conducted between 2016 and 2017.

The research, which the authors said is the first nationally representative examination of cognitive impairment prevalence in more than 20 years, was able to measure prevalence of dementia and mild cognitive impairment by age, education, ethnicity, gender and race.

The results showed older adults who self-identified as Black or African American were more likely to have dementia, while those who identify as Hispanic were more likely to suffer from mild cognitive impairment. People who had less than a high school education were more likely to have both conditions.

“Dementia research in general has largely focused on college-educated people who are racialized as white,” lead study author Jennifer Manly said in a statement.

“This study is representative of the population of older adults and includes groups that have been historically excluded from dementia research but are at higher risk of developing cognitive impairment because of structural racism and income inequality,” said Manly, professor of neuropsychology at the Gertrude H. Sergievsky Center and the Taub Institute for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain at Columbia University.

“If we’re interested in increasing brain health equity in later life, we need to know where we stand now and where to direct our resources,” Manly said.

The study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Neurology, analyzed data from in-depth neuropsychological tests and interviews with nearly 3,500 people over age 65 enrolled in the Health and Retirement Study, a long-term research project sponsored by the National Institute on Aging and the Social Security Administration.

The research was based on a randomly selected sample of people from the study that completed the core survey and underwent neurological testing between June 2016 and October 2017.

Fifteen percent of people who identified as Black tested positive for dementia, while 22% had mild cognitive decline, the study found. Ten percent of people who identified as Hispanic had dementia, but the rate of milder issues was higher — 28% tested positive for mild cognitive impairment. Nine percent of White people had dementia, while 21% had mild cognitive impairment.

Educational achievement, which experts consider to be protective against cognitive decline, showed a significant divide: Nine percent of people with a college degree tested positive for dementia, compared with 13% of those who never received a high school diploma. Twenty-one percent of people over 65 with college degrees had mild cognitive decline, compared with 30% of those with less than a high school degree.

The extreme elderly had the highest rates of dementia and mild cognitive impairment. Only 3% of adults between 65 and 69 tested positive for dementia, compared with 35% of those 90 and older.

In fact, every five-year increase in age was associated with higher risk of dementia and mild cognitive impairment, the report said. The study, however, found no differences between men and women in rates of either condition

Symptoms of mild cognitive impairment can include losing items, forgetting to do things or go to appointments, or struggling to come up with words. A loss of smell and taste and movement issues can also be symptoms, according to the National Institute on Aging.

People with mild cognitive impairment are fully capable of taking care of themselves, “but what they have to go through to do so is exhausting,” Laura Baker, a professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, told CNN in an earlier interview. She was not involved in the current study.

People with mild cognitive impairment may not remember where they are supposed to be, Baker said. ” ‘Let me check my calendar. Oh, I forgot to write on this calendar. Let’s check another calendar. Oh, I can’t find that calendar. I’ve lost my phone. Where is the key? I can’t find the key.’ They’re able to regroup in the early stages and accomplish things, but the toll is immense.”

Not everyone with mild cognitive impairment goes on to develop dementia, although many do, experts say. Lifestyle changes may be a key to reversing mental decline. A 2019 study found personalized lifestyle interventions -— such as diet, exercise, stress reduction and sleep hygiene — not only stopped cognitive decline in people at risk for Alzheimer’s, but actually increased their memory and thinking skills over 18 months. Women responded better than men, a follow-up study found.

A February study found about a third of women 75 years or older with mild cognitive impairment reversed their progression to dementia at some point during follow-up. All of the women, however, had high levels of education and academic performance and excellent written language skills, or what experts call “cognitive reserve.”

Signs of dementia can differ from one person to the next, and can include memory loss and confusion, difficulty speaking, understanding and expressing thoughts, or reading and writing, according to the National Institutes of Health.

People with dementia can act impulsively or show poor judgment, and they can have trouble paying bills or handling money responsibly. They may repeat questions, use strange words to refer to familiar objects and take longer than usual to complete daily tasks.

Wandering and getting lost in a familiar neighborhood is another sign of dementia, as is losing interest in daily activities or events or acting as if they don’t care about other people’s feelings. They may lose their balance or have other problems with movement. At times, people with dementia can hallucinate or experience delusions or paranoia.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most well-known cause of dementia, but cognitive issues can be caused by vascular problems that block the flow of blood to the brain or via ministrokes caused by tiny blood clots traveling to the brain. Frontal lobe dementia, a rare form thought to be associated with abnormal amounts of the proteins tau and TDP-43, often begins in people younger than 60. Another type of decline, called Lewy body dementia, is thought to be caused by abnormal deposits of the protein alpha-synuclein, which are called Lewy bodies.

A person with signs of cognitive decline or dementia needs a full workup by a neurologist to determine the underlying cause, the NIH said. Side effects from a number of medications can mimic dementia, as can certain diseases, such as Huntington’s disease.

If you’ve just been diagnosed with dementia, continue to meet with doctors and specialists and consider asking for a referral to a memory clinic, according to the National Institutes of Health. Reach out to your local Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and consider joining a clinical trial.

The Alzheimer’s Association has detailed information on the differences between dementia and Alzheimer’s, and it offers many levels of support for both patients and caregivers.

Work on staying healthy — exercise helps with mood, balance and thinking, while eating a well-balanced diet and getting quality sleep can improve the brain’s ability to function.



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