AIBU to stop helping after injuring myself lifting elderly neighbour?

If you look online, everything under the sun is supposed to positively or negatively impact the speed of cognitive decline. Eating oily fish, eating blueberries, getting adequate sleep, social stimulation... If you ask dementia clinicians for advice, they're much cagier on whether cognitive decline can be slowed.

Yes I have read the research. Just Google it.
It of course depends on the exact cause, but as a general rule someone with cognitive decline who is helped to socialise will deteriorate at a slower rate than someone just sitting in their house.

In general terms that's true. But if we're going to be pressuring women out of the workforce (thus reducing how much they pay in tax), to deliver unpaid care, in order to save strain on the public purse, we'd better quantify that.

If Susan takes her uncle David out twice a week instead of once a week, by how many years will that delay his cognitive decline? At what age will the average elderly man need residential care if he is supported to go out three times a week by family? At what age will he need residential care if he goes out daily?

I also think it depends on whether going out makes Uncle David happy or not. I think that these studies often focus on what people thing will make people happy and therefore stave off cognitive decline or what will actually make them happy. I look at TV items on choirs, exercise classes, lunch clubs, craft classes and so on and think "over my dead body" I do absolutely agree that facilitating people doing things that they enjoy improves their quality of life...whether it staves off cognitive decline...I still think the jury is out.

I was an Occupational Therapist who worked with older people with all kinds of cognitive disabilities and I agree! What can be done is to try to improve quality of life even when remembering what they have done that day is beyond them. Its years ago now but I knew one very wise geriatrician who said that its a better aim to leave people with good feelings about their day than to attempt to get them to remember what they did.

I can't find any validated research, that states your view and yes I googled. Have you got any links please?

I am a bit surprised that a hoist wasn't supplied. There are less bulky soultions to lift someone off the floor but they require more cooperation on the part of the faller.

My anecdotal opinion is that it seems very easy to speed cognitive decline up though social isolation, but social stimulus doesn't seem to slow it down at a similar observable rate.

It reminds me a bit of the difference between the concrete findings in the field of child development of what harms children, versus the claims of businesses selling toys and gadgets that promise to promote child development: we know that severe emotional neglect (such as in the Romanian orphanages) can permanently damage children's development, but there's no equivalently strong evidence for how baby Mozart CDs (I still bought one, anyway) being played to your newborn will ensure your child goes on to win a Nobel.

I agree wholeheartedly with this @godmum. My mum had vascular dementia and I tried really hard to engage mum with the various memory things that were recommended. In the end I found the thing that reassured her the most was going along with wherever she thought the day had taken her. Most of the time it was beyond the realms of possibility and involved long dead relatives but she found so much comfort in it that I just ran with it to see the contentment it brought.

Not sure whether it’s dependent on the type of dementia, but mums was vascular and we made every effort to keep her involved socially. Someone was with her throughout the day, we read to her, showed her photos and played the music she loved. She had lots of visitors and interacted regularly with family - grandkids etc. To my mind it didn’t make much difference to the rate of decline. At the end she went from mobile and conversational to bed bound and non verbal within three months. There’s still so much we don’t understand about the brain.

I think you are right. Its the difference between things that can cause any illness but taking those things away once the illness has happened doesn't reverse it or necessarily slow its course. I also think that when research looks at people doing things they enjoy, so far as I am aware, there is no research on making people who don't want to, do those same activities to see if it has any beneficial effect. This brings me back to doing things that people will actually enjoy regardless of any clinical benefit.
Also of course, there is no way you can know what would have happened to that person without the social isolation. I am aware that much of the recent social isolation research was collected during and after Covid but while its valuable, it should be recognised that there was more going on than social isolation. It was enforced. There was fear felt by the the isolated people but also fear for their loved ones, also of course the more generalised fear of the unknown future.

Lifting adults is a skill. They need professional help. Contact Social Services.

It's like cancer research. If for some perverse reason you wanted someone to develop cancer, we have identified lots of ways to massively raise the likelihood of cancer, like breathing in asbestos, X-raying pregnant women to check fetal position and so on.

But what have we found that has a significant protective effect? Well, not much. People who lead healthy lifestyles without engaging in any habits or activities that are known to raise the statistical risk of cancer still develop cancer.

I just found this that looks interesting?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11772710/

None of the hoists we have available in the community where I work go all the way to the floor so are no good for picking people up who have fallen or who have rolled off the bed. I’ve been able to lifting cushions as a special but they were in very specific circumstances (younger people with MS)

I absolutely agree with the comment you made in your other post about dementia and remembering how you feel. I use that all the time in my practice when trying to support and reassure families ❤️

One of the biggest causes of aging and disease is something called oxidative stress..... Unfortunately the "cure" of not breathing oxygen is orders of magnitude more fatal!

That's interesting. Its quite a while since I retired (2000-ish) but it was quite common then where I practiced, to put a hoist in the house that would go low enough to lift someone off the floor if they were falling often. Of course not all houses are big enough to store one, not all family carers want one or the client won't accept it so its not a magic wand. There may also be new health and safety guidance to stop it because things do change. Part of my job used to be to teach carers to use them, also do training for social services employed carers.

Thank you that is intersting and definitely strong evidence but it doesn't address the issue of the people who don't want to be social, who don't enjoy it, who are made happy by doing other things. This is why I keep banging on about what makes people happy perhaps being more worth focussing on than social activity alone.

well no....not quite https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/oxidative-stress

yes. My mother had a patch of skin cancer on her lower back. She was never a sunbather and certainly never wore bikini's.

I think we have to be very clear about what degree of social activity is needed, too. Anecdotally, as a person observing my extended family, I would say that gregarious people with expansive social networks seem to retain their full faculties longer, as that study's data suggested. But I'm not convinced that uncle Dave will develop dementia more slowly if his niece drives him to choir/the greyhound track/bingo twice a week instead of once. It will probably make uncle Dave happier, which is a worthy goal.in itself, but a different one.

Also, as the study's authors observed, being unwilling to engage in social activities is an early sign of dementia. I cannot endorse making uncle Dave engage in activities he doesn't like because it might slow down his cognitive decline.

I agree with what you say.....here comes the "but"
I'd say "can be an early sign of dementia" If its definitely a sign of early dementia then I have been dementing since I was about 16 and am now in my 70's. I have never been gregarious or had or wanted a wide social network. I agree that people like me are at one end of the curve (no I am not ND to my knowledge) but many people do have a limited tolerance for the society of others, especially in large groups. I saw Monty Don talking about it in a reel on facebook, saying that with age he has learned to deal with it and avoid the stress that it causes him.
I would suggest that that a better diagnostic sign would be "a change in peoples' wish to engage in social activity" In my clinical experience, its possible for an early sign of disinhibition to result in the person becoming more outgoing. Of course as this continues, if it does, then it can bring its own problems.

Final comment before I get off my soapbox. I am always suspicious of research results that people want to be true...and there are many reasons why people might want this particular piece of research to be true......

edit: ok I lied, there is a bit more I just thought of.....maybe the concept needs to be more nuanced.....maybe maintaining the type and amount of social interaction that suits the individual might have a role in staving off deterioration? One size may not fit all.

You are completely correct, the diagnostic sign is a change in enjoyment of social activity! I think the proper term might be "withdrawal" from one's normal social activities?

well but maybe, as I have seen, a sudden need for more social activity can also be an early sign of disinhibition, also a sign of cognitive deterioration?

Also true, but I'm more familiar with people who withdraw.