Recently, Professor Robert S. Wilson from Rush University Medical Center in Chicago led the research team to follow up 1978 old people aged about 80 for 7 years. It was found that regular playing cards, playing games and reading can effectively delay the occurrence of Alzheimer's disease. Even after excluding a series of interference factors such as education level and gender, the elderly who often carry out the above-mentioned mental activities still prolong the time of Alzheimer's disease by 5 years. The study, entitled "Cognitive Activity and Onset Age of Incident Alzheimer Disease Dementia", was published in Neurology, the top journal of the American Psychiatric Society.
For this research result, Professor Wilson said, "this is good news. It is not too late to carry out all kinds of cheap and accessible activities, card games and other mental activities involved in this research at any time. Because our results show that even in their 80s, starting mental activity is beneficial to delaying the occurrence of Alzheimer's disease. "
Alzheimer's disease, you and I can't escape the "nightmare"
In recent years, with the increasing aging of China's population and the popularity of the TV series "Du Hao", the current situation and care of Alzheimer's disease, that is, Alzheimer's disease, have triggered discussion. In today's aging society, how to treat Alzheimer's disease is how to treat the old self. After all, Alzheimer's disease is a "time bomb", and it is difficult for people to escape this ultimate fate.
Generally speaking, Alzheimer's disease is also called Alzheimer's disease, but in fact, Alzheimer's disease is a part of the large family of Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease, a medical term, refers to the gradual loss of memory and some intelligence and ability that affect daily activities. About two-thirds of known cases are Alzheimer's disease.
In 2018, the 2018 global Alzheimer's disease report released by the international Alzheimer's Association showed that by 2050, the number of patients with Alzheimer's disease around the world will more than triple from the current 50 million to 152 million. It is estimated that the global social dementia related costs will be $1 trillion in 2018 and will increase to $2 trillion by 2030.
The situation in China is also not optimistic. The epidemiological study on cognitive impairment jointly conducted by China and the United States in 2013 shows that 31 million Chinese people over the age of 65 suffer from mild cognitive impairment, 9 million suffer from Alzheimer's disease and 6 million suffer from Alzheimer's disease. Compared with developed countries, China's aging has distinct characteristics. The scale of the elderly population is huge and the aging is developing rapidly. It is among the countries with the fastest aging rate. Nowadays, China is a large country with Alzheimer's disease, and the aging population is the key to the surge of patients.
Compared with the increasing incidence rate and heavy medical burden, people's cognition of Alzheimer's disease is very backward. Many people disagree with Alzheimer's disease and think that people are old and confused. How can it be a disease? In 2014, a transnational survey released by the American Alzheimer's disease association showed that 59% of people believe that Alzheimer's disease is a normal phenomenon of aging.
In China, not only many ordinary people have serious misunderstandings about Alzheimer's disease, but even many grass-roots doctors do not have a good understanding of Alzheimer's disease. Until today, many doctors still believe that there is no difference between treatment and non treatment of Alzheimer's disease, and it can't be cured anyway. Even, some doctors will treat Alzheimer's disease as a psychosis and put the patients directly into a mental hospital. Because clinically, in addition to memory loss, some patients with Alzheimer's disease do have some mental symptoms, such as night and day sleep reversal, aggressive behavior, shouting and so on.
In fact, Alzheimer's disease is a latent progressive neurodegenerative disease. Clinically, it is characterized by comprehensive dementia such as memory impairment, aphasia, apraxia, agnosia, impairment of visuospatial skills, executive dysfunction and personality and behavior changes. The etiology is unknown so far. For patients with Alzheimer's disease, if there is no timely treatment and intervention, the average life span from onset to death is only 7 years. At the same time, once patients enter the stage of severe dementia, they will not be able to take care of themselves, which will greatly increase the burden on their families.
Therefore, for patients with Alzheimer's disease, early detection, early treatment and intervention are the best choice. Drugs can delay disease progression, significantly improve patients' cognitive function and psychobehavioral symptoms, and reduce the burden of caregivers.
Brain activity can delay the progression of Alzheimer's disease
Among the top ten causes of death in the United States, Alzheimer's disease is the only disease that can neither be cured nor prevented. At present, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has only approved six drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, namely donepezil, lidamine, galantamine, tacrine, memantine and the newly launched aducanumab. These drugs are not divine drugs. Even the highly expected aducanumab can only improve and delay the disease.
In addition to drug treatment, cognitive intervention is also considered to be one of the ways to effectively delay and prevent Alzheimer's disease in recent years. At the same time, compared with the high price of drugs (the annual treatment cost of aducanumab is more than 300000 yuan) and side effects, many patients have higher acceptance of cognitive training.
However, it has been controversial whether cognitive training can effectively delay the progression of Alzheimer's disease.
A research team in the United States spent five years investigating 700 people over the age of 65 and published their research results in 2012. They found that those who often played crossword puzzles or board games were 47% less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease.
In 2016, researchers from Mayo Clinic in the United States tracked 393 elderly people over 70 years old and found that age was related to amyloid and neurodegenerative diseases, while lifestyle had little effect on amyloid deposition in the elderly. Because amyloid is one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease, researchers believe that lifestyle such as cognitive training may not delay the progression of Alzheimer's disease.
In order to further determine the impact of cognitive training on Alzheimer's disease, Professor Robert S. Wilson led the research team to follow up 1978 patients with an average age of 80 years and no dementia for an average of 7 years. Each year, researchers examine these participants to determine whether they have Alzheimer's disease. At the same time, during the follow-up period, the researchers will also investigate the participants' mental activities, including the frequency of reading, games, chess and cards, so as to evaluate their mental activity status.
During the study follow-up, a total of 457 participants were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Compared with those with low mental activity, the diagnosis time of Alzheimer's disease was delayed by 5 years. Even after adjusting a series of factors such as education level and gender, the result is still the same.
In addition, the brains of 695 dead people were dissected during the trial to examine Alzheimer's disease markers such as amyloid and τ Protein level. The results showed that there was no correlation between the frequency of cognitive activities and the above markers. This also means that the intervention of cognitive training in Alzheimer's disease is independent of the above markers.
The results of this study once again show that improving the level of brain activity in the elderly can effectively delay the occurrence of Alzheimer's disease. Therefore, for the elderly, moderate playing mahjong and mental games is also a good thing. For the current young people, this problem can also be solved through games in the future.
