Hello
readers, welcome, its spring!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This would
my fourth blog but not final. May be I didn’t mention the inspiration behind
talking about Alzheimer’s and bringing awareness to the people. Trying to make
as much difference possible by educating younger generations that this disease
needs to slow down or we need to speed up. Margaret Thatcher is my little
burning fire to see a hopeful tomorrow.
Speaking of
that, Through “PubMed” - a reputed site for articles, I just came across a latest study (Primary Research article) done this
month, regarding lifestyle behavior pattern and risks of Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
As we all
know that lifestyle behavior pattern is really important, as I mentioned in my
previous post how it has positive effects. This study looks at six behavioral
patterns;
Lifestyle behavior pattern is associated with different levels of risk
for incident Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
Abstract:
Basically,
there has been couple of research done strictly how physical activity effects
dementia, or how involvement in social, mental and productive activities
associate lower incidence of dementia. Also, diet has been associated with less
cognitive decline but “little work has been done to simultaneously examine a
wide range of lifestyle behaviors for their collective influence.” Identifying
lifestyle is very important as it could help lead us leading to certain
populations that may have risks of getting dementia in the future. Which is why
this research article is the next step to help with prevention.
“Although
risk of dementia, particularly AD, depends strongly on biological and genetic
factors, life span development theory argues that there is flexibility in
development, suggesting that individuals may influence late-life cognitive
outcomes through lifestyle choices.”
Objective:
To, “identify
individual behavioral patterns of diet, exercise, social interaction, church
attendance, alcohol consumption, and smoking and to examine their association
with consequent dementia risk” as well as combined effect of these patterns.
Measurement:
They
used certain measurements to obtain their baseline for every factor being
influenced. To better understand, Latent class analysis (LCA) was used to
identify patterns among these behaviors, this was a combination of lifestyle;
grouped. LCA lead to four lifestyle classes. Unhealthy- religious (UH-R),
Unhealthy-nonreligious (UH-NR), Healthy-moderately religious (H-MR) and
Healthy-very religious (H-VR).
Method:
This study
was conducted in Cache country, Utah where residents generally had high
prevalence, attributes which contributed to healthy aging. Numbers of
participants used were “two thousand and four hundred night-one participants
(healthy) without dementia initially reported no problems in activities of
daily living.” It is a longitudinal, population-based
study- which means studies where carried out for 5 consecutive years within a
large group of people (community).
The
participants were diagnosed for prior dementia as part of CCMS protocols. There
was an in-person interview that included an examination (3MS) as well as
physical evaluation, and neuropsychological tests.
All the six
aspects were measured at respective baseline, in person or through a mailed questionnaire.
 |
| DIET |
 |
| RELIGIOUS |
 |
| SMOKING |
 |
| DRINKING |
 |
| EXERCISE |
 |
| SOCIAL INTERACTIONS |
Analyses:
As I mentioned that these studies were done in the Latent Class Analysis (LCA). It identified subgroups, thus distinguishing the diversity in character of the population. The purpose of LCA "is to explain the correlation between the behavioural variables by identifying underlying subgroups, using maximum likelihood technique to generate estimates of the likelihood of an individual being in a class and the likelihood of response, given conditional likelihood.”
As I mentioned that these studies were done in the Latent Class Analysis (LCA). It identified subgroups, thus distinguishing the diversity in character of the population. The purpose of LCA "is to explain the correlation between the behavioural variables by identifying underlying subgroups, using maximum likelihood technique to generate estimates of the likelihood of an individual being in a class and the likelihood of response, given conditional likelihood.”
Overall RESULTS:
Sample Result:
They are proportion of the sample, spilt according to sex and lifestyle, as you can see the alcohol threshold in men is more then women.
These are the four distinct behaviour pattern. UH-R, UH-NR, H-MR, H-VR. Sample Result:
They are proportion of the sample, spilt according to sex and lifestyle, as you can see the alcohol threshold in men is more then women.
Results:
These results showed that UH-NR, H-MR and H-VR, had significantly lower dementia risk than UH-R. So basically be healthy and little spiritual, you might be able to avoid AD in the near future.
Discussion:
Most of the participants reported going to church and since the church they go to had strict proscriptions against alcohol consumption and smoking this could have deflected the experiment group H-R with UH-R. People going to church had a better diet, exercise, and social interactions, and the other subsample was low on all three of these behaviours.
H-VR and H-MR were different only that the former were somewhat more likely to attend church and abstain from alcohol than the latter. Both had significantly lower risk of all cause dementia and AD
Conclusion: It suggests that older adults who are functionally independent tend to be categorized with distinct patterns of lifestyle behaviors with different levels of risks for getting dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
Reference:
Author Norton,Maria C.; Dew,Jeffrey; Smith,Heeyoung; Fauth,Elizabeth; Piercy,Kathleen W.; Breitner,John C.S.;Tschanz,JoAnn; Wengreen,Heidi; Welsh-Bohmer, Kathleen; for the Cache County Investigators
Title
Lifestyle Behavior Pattern Is Associated with Different levels of Risk for Incident Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease: The Cache County Study
Source
Norton, Maria C., et al. "Lifestyle Behavior Pattern is Associated with Different Levels of Risk for Incident Dementia and Alzheimer's Disease: The Cache County Study." Journal of the American Geriatrics Society 60.3 (2012): 405-12. Web.
