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Lessons Learned About Fading Brainpower
Study: Mental skills ebb years before death, may be
linked to onset of disease, not just normal aging
By Kelley Colinan
WebMD Health News
When
it comes to getting older, is there a point when
certain mental skills start to fade? If there is,
what can we do about it?
Researchers got together 288 people, 162 women and
126 men, from one community in Sweden (Goteborg) to
get the answers.
When
the study began the participants did not have any
form of dementia.
The
participants were tested up to 12 times from age 70
until their death, as researchers gauged how well
they did in three categories.
The
average age of death was 84.
Participants were measured in these three areas:
Verbal ability, or how well they were able to
understand ideas expressed in words with synonyms.
Spatial ability was tested using two-colored blocks
to build a replica of a model design shown.
Perceptual speed, or how fast they were able to
match a certain figure in a line of other figures.
Here
are the results of when those three skills started
to decline:
-
When it came to verbal ability, participants
showed a "change point" for decline nearly seven
years (6.58) before they died.
-
In spatial ability, the change point came almost
eight years before death. (7.83)
-
On perceptual speed, a difference was seen
nearly 15 years before dying. (14.83)
"These changes are different and separate from the
changes in thinking skills that occur as people get
older," study lead author Valgeir Thorvaldsson, MSc,
of Goteberg University in Sweden, says in a news
release.
"We
found accelerated changes in people's mental skills
that indicated a terminal decline phase years before
death."
Is
there something we can do about it? Are there any
reasons why this may be happening?
Thorvaldsson says health conditions could contribute
to the decline. "Cardiovascular conditions such as
heart disease or dementia that is too early to be
detected could be factors."
He
says that "increased health problems and frailty in
old age often lead to inactivity, and this lack of
exercise and mental stimulation could accelerate
mental decline."
Thorvaldsson speculates that physicians may want to
watch for changes in verbal ability, like staying
sharp at recognizing ideas expressed in words, as a
warning sign of declining health since the study
found that verbal skills took a sharper decline in
the years before death.
The
findings appeared in the Aug. 27 online edition of
Neurology.
©
WebMD. All rights reserved.
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"We found accelerated changes in people's mental
skills that indicated a terminal decline phase
years before death." |
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