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5 Alzheimer’s experts’ lifestyle advice on avoiding and delaying the onset of the most common form of dementia
- On World Alzheimer’s Day, five experts give advice on avoiding the onset of this most prevalent form of dementia that affects more than 55 million
- Physical and mental exercise, socialising, and getting your hearing, cholesterol and glucose tested all help, as does doing or learning something new every day
Reading Time:4 minutes
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This is the 20th instalment in a series on dementia, including the research into its causes and treatment, advice for carers, and stories of hope.
I don’t know how dementia slipped under my radar for so long. Then it was almost all I saw.
Do we not see it because it’s tucked out of sight?
When my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s – the most prevalent form of dementia, accounting for 60 to 80 per cent of cases – I didn’t actively, or consciously, hide her away. Taking her anywhere became increasingly challenging for both of us, with her incontinence and then compromised mobility.
Then it was just too frightening for her. Our return home just a few hours after we’d left – for a dentist appointment or a haircut, say – unsettled her greatly: “Where are we?” she’d ask plaintively. “Who are you? Why have we moved?”
Maybe we fail to see dementia because we aren’t looking – or because we are looking away.
Anthea Rowan has written for papers and magazines on almost every continent and on a huge variety of subjects, from travel in Africa to mental illness in the States to education in Europe. Her work has appeared in The Times in London, the Washington Post in America and regularly in the South China Morning Post. She is the author of A Silent Tsunami: Swimming Against the Tide of My Mother’s Dementia.
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