Frequent brain exercises can help prevent dementia

Lee Sung-hun

By Lee Sung-hun

One of the greatest benefits of the advances of our society is that we now live longer.

The flipside of that benefit is that as a society, we are aging faster than ever and there are associated health concerns, and dementia is one of such growing concerns.

Dementia is one of the top 4 causes of premature death in Korea with heart disease, cancer and stroke making up the rest.

As dementia affects not only the patient but degrades the life of the patient’s family who are the primary caretakers, it has become a social issue.

So much so that the new administration has proposed national level dementia support as its first pledge in the social welfare department.

Dementia, most common among the elderlies above age of 65, is an overall term for declines in mental abilities due to various causes that damages brain cells so that it interferes with daily life and the symptoms include loss of memory and impairment of other thinking skills.

One common misunderstanding among many people is that when it sometimes becomes difficult to recall certain memories, they jump to the often-wrong conclusion that it is dementia.

Although the loss of memory is the most common symptoms that appear at the early stages of dementia, it is different from simple forgetfulness.

Dementia patients generally display impairment in other mental capacities such as languages, visuospatial ability and judgement, etc.

Commonly, dementia patients have difficulties storing new information in the long-term memory but can retrieve older memories with relative ease.

This means that some patients cannot recall recent events in their entirety, even when others suggest hints and reminders about them.

However, as dementia progresses, patients can also experience challenges with retrieving long-term memories as well.

In contrast, people who have become forgetful have forgotten only parts of an event and can recall such memories when hints are given.

If someone is concerned that their memory is not like “old days,” it is less likely that they are at the early stages of dementia.

Dementia patients do not recognize that there are issues with their memory, nor do they admit to that fact.

There are over 80 different underlying diseases that can lead to dementia while 3 of them are the most common.

Alzheimer’s disease – a degenerative disease of the brain that affects cerebral cortex – is the leading cause that accounts for about 50% of all dementia.

20 to 30% of dementia are caused by strokes and other interruptions to the blood supply to the brain that can lead to brain damage, which are also known as vascular dementia.

Other degenerative brain diseases such as Parkinson’s disease or Lewy body disease make up about 10% of dementia causes.

Traditional Korean medicine offers some treatment options for dementia as well, particularly in the cases of vascular dementia.

Hanyak medications can improve memory functions while slowing the degradation of cognitive functions.

Studies have also shown that flowing mild electrical currents through acupuncture needles can improve cognitive functions.

Once progressed, complete recovery to the previous state is not possible with dementia.

Hence, it is essential to prevent or slow down the progress before it become severe.

If a mild cognitive impairment – a stage between normal aging and dementia – is confirmed, treatments should immediately begin.

Alzheimer’s disease, the leading cause of dementia is known to be less common among those with higher degrees of education of jobs that require higher intellectual capacity.

Hobbies, learning new computer skills or new languages, or even playing card games that involve active participation of our brain can help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

Vascular dementia which are more common here in Korea than other countries can also be prevented by monitoring blood pressure and cholesterol levels along with regular exercises.