Dementia Rate Drops Sharply, as Forecast

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/health/study-finds-dip-in-dementia-rates.html

by a5seo • 13 years ago

117 54 13 years ago

nytimes.com

DanBC• 13 years ago

One of the most fascinating pieces I read about dementia care was also in the NY Times about life prisoners.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/health/dealing-with-dement...)

thoughtpalette• 13 years ago

Wow, that was moving.

ronnier• 13 years ago

I wonder how much attribution can be given to the thought that many people keep their minds more active now with various forms of entertainment like games, smartphones, books, puzzles, etc.

GotAnyMegadeth• 13 years ago

Is there any evidence that that affects things either way? (Genuinely curious)

darkmighty2• 13 years ago

I'm not sure about scientific evidence, but it's almost the case you don't need scientific evidence to know that keeping an active mind severely mitigates dementia. I think there's a lot of research regarding Alzheimer's, but this kind of research has huge timeframes which make hard to draw good conclusions from because of experimental design limitations.

robbiep3• 13 years ago

There is absolutely evidence that mental acuity is protective against Alzheimer's.

From [1] Education > 15 years (cf. <12) has the lowest relative risk (0.48) of developing Alzheimer's of all investigated interventions

Patterson, C. et al. CMAJ 2008;178:548-556 (for those that can, DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.070796 )

robbiep3• 13 years ago

This is great news. 60% of Dementia is due to Alzheimers whilst remaining 40% is roughly split between Vascular dementia (dementia due to mini-strokes) and Dementia with lewy bodies (a histopathological finding).

Unfortunately Alzheimers is largely a pathological diagnosis (ie. it requires a brain biopsy usually post mortem to diagnose) and I didn't dig up the british study this is largely taken from to see where they thought the decline was coming from but it is very good news and should be welcomed!

pstuart• 13 years ago

And possible good news about Alzheimers:

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/25/bittman-is-a...

ekianjo4• 13 years ago

This theory that Al Zheimer is due to a form of Diabetes does not have much support from the key thought leaders currently. [Disclaimer: I worked on Al Zheimer]. For all we know, it may be a combination of several factors and not a single one.

lettergram• 13 years ago

Hopefully this is true, I feel like the studies were not thorough enough to conclude conclusively that Dementia is declining, for example the study in Denmark had relatively moderate to small numbers and takes people at different ages (93 and 95, perhaps people with Dementia likely die before 95 for example). The British study seems better, but still 56% of people declining is kind of high.

In either case, logically this seems fairly strait forward and these studies do provide some insight, so good news! I hope there's a similar study done in the U.S.

ExpiredLink2• 13 years ago

I suspect a statistical error.

wtallis• 13 years ago

Are you suspecting any particular analytic error, or are you just expressing an unwillingness to believe in the conclusion without regard for the strength of the evidence?

ExpiredLink2• 13 years ago

A drop of more than 25% would be sensational indeed. This is highly implausible. The article even hints at "methodological problems" in previous studies. BTW, medical studies in general are known to be prone to methodological errors.

juskrey4• 13 years ago

I suspect pure methodological one. Theoretical test for biological diagnosis seems very, very weak evidence to me. They are basically comparing two differently educated societies, not two sets of bodies.

dr_• 13 years ago

It's important to note that none of this decline was attributed to medications which are meant to manage the symptoms. These medications are, IMO, largely useless.

guhemama2• 13 years ago

Some studies show that the medications efficiency is variable, but in college I did a long term study with elder people with dementia, and guess what was the conclusion? The ones that did not take meds had bigger cognitive losses, and the ones that did take meds on early dementia stages had a smaller loss.

crucifiction• 13 years ago

Unleaded gasoline.

ams6110• 13 years ago

Leaded gasoline potentially affected at most a few generations in the 20th century. Do we see a spike in dementia correlated with the years that leaded gasoline was used?

Spooky23• 13 years ago

Just conjecture -- but the ww2 generation would have had the most lifetime exposure to leaded gasoline. They're dying off in increasing numbers.

Subsequent generations may have had less exposure due to suburbanization and the banning of leaded gas.

tocomment• 13 years ago

This was my thought too. From a cursory look at the ages in this study I'm thinking it's not the cause here at least? I may be wrong.

I'm still very curious is Alzheimer's is caused by something environmental? I've heard aluminum suggested but I haven't seen anything conclusive. (And I can't find antacids that don't include aluminum!)

solnyshok2• 13 years ago

I strongly distrust this study because of participant "self-selection bias". 80% of approached subjects declined to participate in the tests. There is too much probability, that those people who experience onset of dementia would decide to not participate in such study, especially now, when privacy is getting NSA-ed and all data about you is going to affect your google search, targeting, re-targeting and your insurance rate

leoedin• 13 years ago

While I certainly agree with your suggestion that there might be self-selection bias in play (as commented on in the article), to suggest that the subjects were concerned about the NSA or Google is ridiculous. The study was undertaken between 1984 and 1994. Google didn't exist and the vast majority of the population had no internet access. The idea of electronic data privacy had probably not even occurred to most approached. I would be surprised if more than a handful of those approached (all aged above 65 in 1994) even owned a computer.

Please don't hijack every comment thread with irrelevent complaints about the NSA.

solnyshok2• 13 years ago

Ok, I did not pay attention to the timespan, thought it is much more recent study. This however, doesn't alter anything, people today are no more willing to self-reveal fatal/terminal/disabling ilnesses, or even to accept having one - than 100 years ago

Dementia Rate Drops Sharply, as Forecast

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