Science has pointed to the fact that exercise can help to stave off Alzheimer’s disease for a number of years now, but evidence keeps coming in. With a new study, not only was it found that this was true, but it also indicated that a lack of exercise can make the disease more difficult to manage when it begins to worsen.
The study was conducted by UC Berkeley and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Patients were tracked for a period of six years. The researchers pointed out that the elderly population is going to be most heavily affected by this research, and that there are 28 million Baby Boomers currently living in the United States. In other words, this research has a huge targeted population.
One other finding of this study was that sleep patterns tended to have an impact. Those individuals that were not getting proper sleep were more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. This is not a surprise as sleep is suspected to help the brain clean itself out each night, and Alzheimer’s disease is linked to a buildup of dangerous amyloid plaque within the brain. Researchers were clear to say that you should focus not only getting more sleep, but on getting higher quality sleep.
The best way to prepare for this is to make some lifestyle changes now while it’s a little easier. If you are already grappling with dementia or age related issues, change becomes much harder. If you have ever helped to care for an elderly loved one, you are probably quite familiar with this. Try to incorporate more exercise into your life and into the lives of your family members. If you have an older mom or dad that you are caring for, try to help them find easier forms of exercise that will not lead to injury.
Getting higher quality sleep is easier said than done. Many seniors do have trouble with sleep, and it seems that this may be contributing to things. One easy consideration here is to acknowledge that stress can be something that keeps people from sleep. Having a slightly less stressful day might help people rest better at night. By hiring a professional in-home caregiver, this stress can be reduced as a majority of the difficult daily tasks that your elderly family members face can now be done for them. Obviously there’s no scientific indication that this is linked to the prevention of Alzheimer’s, but helping your loved one out with getting the appropriate care to make it through the day is still the right thing to do.
Senior health is still a developing field in terms of medical advances. Studies like this one are helpful because they shed light on things that we already know, and give us a bit more information on the things that we don’t. The important thing is that we take the steps necessary to help older family members stay as safe and as healthy for as long as possible. Helping them by hiring a caregiver seems like a big step, but it might be necessary to help them maintain high levels of physical and mental health.
Leave a Reply