Wednesday, 20 May 2015

What can you do to prevent dementia?

Judi Dench in Iris, in which she plays the novelist Iris Murdoch, who struggled with dementia


It’s a condition that could strike any one of us, and there is still no cure. But evidence suggests that changing your lifestyle can help to reduce your risk

The longer we live, the more likely we are to develop dementia. Of all the myriad conditions that accompany old age, it is the one that tends to terrify us most. One in six people over 80 have the condition, with impaired cognitive function (usually memory loss) and at least one other significant problem with language, spatial awareness or function. Treatments exist, but they often have little or no effect and, despite reports last week that US researchers have found a possible cause, there is still no cure.

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