stroke

Rates of new dementia cases may be falling

  • Data from the very long-running Framingham Heart Study adds to evidence that, for those with at least a high school education, the rate of dementia is declining. Improved cardiovascular health and treatment appears to be an important factor in this decline.

As we all know, people are living longer and obesity is at appalling levels. For both these (completely separate!) reasons, we expect to see growing rates of dementia. A new analysis using data from the long-running Framingham Heart Study offers some hope to individuals, however.

Looking at the rate of dementia during four distinct periods in the late 1970s, late 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, using data from 5205 older adults (60+), the researchers found that there was a progressive decline in the incidence of dementia at a given age, with an average reduction of 20% per decade since the 1970s (22%, 38%, and 44% during the second, third, and fourth epochs, respectively).

There are two important things to note about this finding:

  • the decline occurred only in people with a high school education and above
  • the decline was more pronounced with dementia caused by vascular diseases, such as stroke.

The cumulative risk over five years, adjusted for age and gender, were:

  • 3.6 per 100 persons during the first period (late 1970s and early 1980s)
  • 2.8 per 100 persons during the second period (late 1980s and early 1990s)
  • 2.2 per 100 persons during the third period (late 1990s and early 2000s)
  • 2.0 per 100 persons during the fourth period (late 2000s and early 2010s).

Part of the reason for the decline is put down to the decrease in vascular risk factors other than obesity and diabetes, and better management of cardiovascular diseases and stroke. But this doesn't completely explain the decrease. I would speculate that other reasons might include:

  • increased mental stimulation
  • improvements in lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise
  • better health care for infectious and inflammatory conditions.

The finding is not completely unexpected. Recent epidemiological studies in the U.S., Canada, England, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark have all suggested that “a 75- to 85-year-old has a lower risk of having Alzheimer’s today than 15 or 20 years ago.” Which actually cuts to the heart of the issue: individual risk of dementia has gone down (for those taking care of their brain and body), but because more and more people are living longer, the numbers of people with dementia are increasing.

http://www.futurity.org/dementia-rates-decline-1119512-2/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-dementia-risk-falling/

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Stroke speeds age-related cognitive decline

  • A large study shows stroke is associated not only with an immediate drop in cognitive ability, but also with faster declines in some cognitive functions.
  • The finding points to a need for better long-term care.

Data from 23,572 Americans from the Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke (REGARDS) study has revealed that those who survived a stroke went on to have significantly faster rates of cognitive decline as they aged.

Participants, who were aged 45 years or older, had no history of cognitive impairment at the beginning of the population-based study. Over the next five to seven years, 515 of them (2%) had a stroke.

Stroke was associated with an acute decline in global cognition, new learning, and verbal memory. Those who had a stroke showed faster declines in global cognition and executive function (but not new learning nor verbal memory) over the next years.

Global cognition was assessed using the Six-Item Screener [SIS]; new learning by the Consortium to Establish a Registry for Alzheimer Disease Word-List Learning; verbal memory by the Word-List Delayed Recall; executive function by the Animal Fluency Test.

The findings suggest a need for better long-term follow-up care for stroke survivors, including therapy to retain or even regain cognitive ability.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-07/uomh-mt070715.php

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Moderate exercise cuts women's stroke risk

Data from 133,479 women in the California Teachers Study has found that those who reported doing moderate physical activity (such as brisk walking) in the three years before enrolling in the study were 20% less likely to suffer a stroke than women who reported no activity. More strenuous activity didn’t further reduce risk.

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How stress increases your risk for stroke and heart attack

A study in which 157 healthy adult volunteers were asked to regulate their emotional reactions to unpleasant pictures, has found that those who showed greater brain activation when regulating their negative emotions also had higher blood levels of interleukin-6 (a marker for inflammation) and increased thickness of the carotid artery wall (a marker of atherosclerosis).

The finding helps explain why stress increases the risk for stroke and heart attack.

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Fiber in your diet reduces stroke risk

Analysis of eight studies on diet and stroke published between 1990 and 2012 has found that risk of first-time stroke dropped with every 7g increase in total daily fibre. That amount of fibre is contained in a bowl of wholewheat pasta plus two servings of fruit or vegetables.

Insufficient data is available to say whether soluble or insoluble fibre is better. The studies came from the United States, northern Europe, Australia, and Japan.

03/2013

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Severe, rapid memory loss linked to future, fatal strokes

March, 2012

A large, long-running study has revealed that older adults who suffered a fatal stroke showed significantly faster cognitive decline in the years preceding the stroke compared to stroke survivors and stroke-free adults.

A ten-year study following 12,412 middle-aged and older adults (50+) has found that those who died after stroke had more severe memory loss in the years before stroke compared to those who survived stroke and those who didn't have a stroke.

Participants were tested every two years, using a standard word-recall list to measure memory loss (or caregiver assessment for those whose memory loss was too severe). During the decade of the study, 1,027 participants (8.3%) survived a stroke, 499 (4%) died after stroke, and 10,886 (87.7%) remained stroke-free over the study period.

Before having a stroke, those who later survived a stroke had worse average memory than similar individuals who never had a stroke, however their rate of memory decline was similar (0.034 and 0.028 points per year, respectively). Those who later died after a stroke, on the other hand, showed significantly faster memory decline (0.118 points per year).

Whether this is because those who die after stroke have a more compromised brain prior to the stroke, or because greater memory impairment makes people more vulnerable in the wake of a stroke, cannot be told from this data (and indeed, both factors may be involved).

Among survivors, stroke had a significant effect on memory decline, with memory scores dropping an average of 0.157 points at the time of the stroke — an amount equivalent to around 5.6 years of memory decline in similarly-aged stroke-free adults. However, in subsequent years, decline was only a little greater than it had been prior to the stroke (0.038 points per year).

(You can see a nice graph of these points here.)

Reference: 

Wang, Q., Capistrant, B.D., Ehntholt, A. & Glymour, M.M. 2012. Abstract 31: Rate of Change in Memory Functioning Before and After Stroke Onset. Presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2012. http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/meeting_abstract/43/2_MeetingAbstracts/A31?sid=960f2015-06d1-478f-8c03-c00994d35f2c

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Walking speed and grip strength may predict dementia, stroke risk

March, 2012

More evidence comes for a link between lower physical fitness and increased risk of dementia in a large study that extends earlier findings to middle-aged and younger-old.

Following on from research showing an association between lower walking speed and increased risk of dementia, and weaker hand grip strength and increased dementia risk, a large study has explored whether this association extends to middle-aged and younger-old adults.

Part of the long-running Framingham study, the study involved 2,410 men and women with an average age of 62, who underwent brain scans and tests for walking speed, hand grip strength and cognitive function. During the follow-up period of up to 11 years, 34 people (1.4%) developed dementia (28 Alzheimer’s) and 79 people (3.3%) had a stroke.

Those who had a slower walking speed at the start of the study were one-and-a-half times more likely to develop dementia compared to people with faster walking speed, while stronger hand grip strength was associated with a 42% lower risk of stroke or transient ischemic attack in people over age 65.

Slower walking speed and weaker hand grip strength were also associated with lower brain volume and poorer cognitive performance. Specifically, those with slower walking speed scored significantly worse on tests of visual reproduction, paired associate learning, executive function, visual organization, and language (Boston Naming test). Higher hand grip strength was associated with higher scores on tests of visual reproduction, executive function, visual organization, language and abstraction (similarities test).

While the nature of the association is not yet understood, the findings do seem to support the benefits of physical fitness. At the least, these physical attributes can serve as pointers to the need for more investigation of an older person’s brain health. But they might also serve as a warning to improve physical fitness.

Reference: 

Camargo, E.C., Beiser, A., Tan, Z.S., Au, R., DeCarli, C., Pikula, A., Kelly-Hayes, M., Kase, C., Wolf, P. & Seshadri, S. 2012. Walking Speed, Handgrip Strength and Risk of Dementia and Stroke: The Framingham Offspring Study. To be presented April 25 at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans.

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How neighborhood status affects cognitive function in older adults

November, 2011

New research confirms the correlation between lower neighborhood socioeconomic status and lower cognitive function in older adults, and accounts for most of it through vascular health, lifestyle, and psychosocial factors.

In the last five years, three studies have linked lower neighborhood socioeconomic status to lower cognitive function in older adults. Neighborhood has also been linked to self-rated health, cardiovascular disease, and mortality. Such links between health and neighborhood may come about through exposure to pollutants or other environmental stressors, access to alcohol and cigarettes, barriers to physical activity, reduced social support, and reduced access to good health and social services.

Data from the large Women’s Health Initiative Memory Study has now been analyzed to assess whether the relationship between neighborhood socioeconomic status can be explained by various risk and protective factors for poor cognitive function.

Results confirmed that higher neighborhood socioeconomic status was associated with higher cognitive function, even after individual factors such as age, ethnicity, income, education, and marital status have been taken into account. A good deal of this was explained by vascular factors (coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke, hypertension), health behaviors (amount of alcohol consumed, smoking, physical activity), and psychosocial factors (depression, social support). Nevertheless, the association was still (barely) significant after these factors were taken account of, suggesting some other factors may also be involved. Potential factors include cognitive activity, diet, and access to health services.

In contradiction of earlier research, the association appeared to be stronger among younger women. Consistent with other research, the association was stronger for non-White women.

Data from 7,479 older women (65-81) was included in the analysis. Cognitive function was assessed by the Modified MMSE (3MSE). Neighborhood socioeconomic status was assessed on the basis of: percentage of adults over 25 with less than a high school education, percentage of male unemployment, percentage of households below the poverty line, percentage of households receiving public assistance, percentage of female-headed households with children, and median household income. Around 87% of participants were White, 7% Black, 3% Hispanic, and 3% other. Some 92% had graduated high school, and around 70% had at least some college.

Reference: 

[2523] Shih, R. A., Ghosh-Dastidar B., Margolis K. L., Slaughter M. E., Jewell A., Bird C. E., et al.
(2011).  Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and Cognitive Function in Women.
Am J Public Health. 101(9), 1721 - 1728.

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Lang IA, Llewellyn DJ, Langa KM, Wallace RB, Huppert FA, Melzer D. 2008. Neighborhood deprivation, individual socioeconomic status, and cognitive function in older people: analyses from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. J Am Geriatr Soc., 56(2), 191-198.

Sheffield KM, Peek MK. 2009. Neighborhood context and cognitive decline in older Mexican Americans: results from the Hispanic Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly. Am J Epidemiol., 169(9), 1092-1101.

Wight RG, Aneshensel CS, Miller-Martinez D, et al. 2006. Urban neighborhood context, educational attainment, and cognitive function among older adults. Am J Epidemiol., 163(12), 1071-1078.

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