Book Review: Outsmarting Alzheimer’s

As we get older, we become more sensitive to forgetfulness. Blanking out on a name at twenty-five years old does not instill the same inner reaction as it does at fifty-five years old, namely, is this the beginning of some form of dementia? These days, I work with a number of older folks and hear the conversations about the mental, physical, and emotional changes that occur as we age. Some changes are comforting, some not, and some can be downright scary. In Outsmarting Alzheimer’s: What You Can Do to Reduce Your Risk, neuroscientist Kenneth Kosik, MD, with the help of Alisa Bowman, has put together a manual to pinpoint whether your “senior moments” are normal or potentially something else. He also gives life-style prescriptions based on scientific research that he believes can reduce the risk of dementia. Outsmarting Alzheimer’s is divided into three parts. Part 1 gives an overview of dementia and discusses how our brains work. In this section, Kosik shows that forgetting isn’t always a symptom of Alzheimer’s and he reassures the reader that there are things we can do things to help keep our brains functioning at a high level. The discussion brought back a memory for me from a developmental psychology class I took a few decades ago in which we learned about pre-death drop — that time in life when our bodies and minds start to deteriorate. We were taught this inevitable decline started at 40! Happily, this fatalistic decline has been disproven. ...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Aging Alzheimer's Book Reviews Caregivers Diet & Nutrition Disorders General Genetics Healthy Living Memory and Perception Neuroscience Psychiatry Self-Help Seniors Alisa Bowman Alzheimer's disease Books for caregivers bo Source Type: news