What new skill(s) can I learn at an older age to help stave off dementia?

[MoonDanceDiner]

My dear mum has advanced Alzheimer's disease. I have helped care for her for the last 5 years and watching this decline in my once vibrant and brightly spirited mum has left me terrified of this awful illness.

I know a lot of it is luck but time and time again I am reading the importance of learning new skills all the way through life to help stave off cognitive decline.

I am 52 and was diagnosed with inattentive adhd this year so I do have a short attention span. Annoyingly I bore of things very easily but I am determined to try new things.

What can I try that is easy to learn but somehow challenging enough to keep my brain active and building up some cognitive reserve for the future?

I am crap with numbers and hate maths but love arts and crafts, nature, history and geography. I love music with a passion and would have loved to have been able to play a musical instrument but I feel that ship has sailed and you really need to be naturally musically gifted like my FIL, he has never once had a lesson yet can play the piano and any keyboard with ease. I have always wanted to play the Ukulele.

I would have also liked to have been able to have spoken a different language but maybe that is a little bit challenging?

Crochet and embroidery is something I also love but again not sure if that is something I can simply pick up at in my 50's?

Oh, I also need to be able to do these things on the cheap as money is tight.

Duolingo and then work upwards from that.

It's made learning another language more accessible for me. Traditional lessons don't work.

A second language has benefits over most other types of mental stimulation if you use it regularly as your brain is then always working to choose the right language.

Socialising and community - could join in person language groups to get two birds with one stone.

Good diet and exercise.

So sad 😞 My mother is a little like this too. She often talks about all the very old people around her in her care home, and doesn't seem to realise that she is one of them. Very frail and pushing 90, but thinks it's a matter of time before she's well enough to go home. Poor little souls.

Not necessarily true and in fact can be the opposite

This study found that women on HRT have a significantly increased risk of all types of dementia, including Alzheimer disease, vascular dementia, and other types of dementia. Risks of Alzheimer disease and vascular dementia were significantly higher in the HRT group, regardless of the age when menopause began. Higher doses of HRT were associated with higher dementia risk. However, the duration of hormone use, either 13.5 years or less vs 13.5 years or more, did not seem to affect the risk.
www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/WNL.0000000000201390

Keep moving as well. Exercise, nature, walking are all good too.
managing your health with diet and not medications help. There’s so much talk about dementia being related to other issues (nothing concrete) like calling it Type 3 diabetes, using certain medications for cholesterol and so on.

It's definitely not too late to learn and instrument. I am almost 40 and have ADHD and I have recently started learning the piano again after giving up in my teens. I am making good progress because when I get a burst of productivity I can channel it into practising the piano for an hour or more, and when I am working from home and I get bored of what I'm doing I can sit down at the piano for 10 minutes.

It’s very sad.

My DM isn’t even mid 70’s yet and doesn’t know she is in a nursing home she thinks she lives around the corner to where she went to primary school.

Duolingo is good as the sections are short. And it counts your ‘streak’ which is a huge incentive for me!

That's heart rending. So young 😔 Do you think she's happy? I read a beautiful book called Contented Dementia recently and it took away some of my fear of it.

Unfortunately not, she’s ended up in a horrible place in her head, although the actual home is amazing.
Anyhow I don’t want to hog the thread.

Jet punk is a Free website with daily puzzles.

Join a Bookclub- you’re more likely to finish books, read books you would not have thought of and look at them from a different perspective.

I agree with volunteering. I do and am learning to apply for grants.

Challenge yourself to make one new meal a week. Could just be a new way of preparing vegetables but it makes you do some research and try new techniques.

If you walk for exercise then try new routes, not the same walk all the time.

listen to podcasts. There’s lots of educational ones out there.

It’s not just about skills. I’m leaving this here, hopefully you will find it helpful

https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/managing-the-risk-of-dementia/reduce-your-risk-of-dementia

Feel better, Live more podcast had an interesting episode recently on the 5 main reasons you will develop develop alzheimers, and how you have a very high chance of beating it.

That study found increased risk of dementia in women >65 who started combined HRT, but the results do not apply to younger women. The “critical window hypothesis” says estrogen is beneficial only if started soon after menopause. Starting years later may not help neurons and may even accelerate decline because the brain has adapted to low estrogen for years.

In a young brain estrogen can improve blood flow and protect neurons.
In an older brain estrogen may increase inflammation or clotting, potentially worsening small vessel disease and promoting cognitive decline.

Late initiation of HRT may interact differently with Alzheimer’s-related proteins and may increase deposition of beta-amyloid plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer’s. Early initiation appears neutral or protective

Late HRT is also linked to higher risk of stroke, heart attack, and blood clots, which indirectly increases risk of vascular dementia

No one in my family has had dementia to my knowledge - my grandmother lived into her 90s and was as sharp as a pin right to the end. Im in my 80s and still run an antiques business. One of my shops is on a Spanish site so Ive been teaching myself Spanish for the last 3 years.

I play chess and scrabble against the computer every day and keep a diary - the kind you write in not just a daily tasks one.

I am always puzzled how highly intelligent people like Margaret Thatcher and Harold Wilson developed dementia. Surely they were using their brain daily in politics.

I also play scrabble and other board games. People tend to have heart attacks in my family and are brain wise. Mum died at 94, she seemed quite childlike for the last 2 years of her life.

You will be more likely to stick with something if you really want to do it so learn the ukulele! Hyperfocus is one of the symptoms of adhd so perhaps that will be of use! My husband taught himself the guitar from lesson on YouTube so you can give that a go at home. Not all musicians play by ear, there is a skill to reading music but it’s not that hard, just practice. Go for it!

That's very sad and 73 is no age.
It kind of reinforces that it's down to genes or luck. A couple of people I've known with it have some of the most enquiring intellectual minds I know.

I understand there’s good evidence for the benefits of learning a new language and learning an instrument. Though one of the most complex cognitive things we do is to socialise, so joining a club of some kind where you’re regularly meeting new people and making new social connections will be helpful.

Dementia largely has the same risk factors as heart disease so being physically active (evidence for use of your big muscles so squatting or lunging v good), healthy diet, well controlled BP and cholesterol etc

I'm 10 years older than you and have been learning the piano for a year (for my own enjoyment), started going to the gym 10 weeks ago and have a goal of deadlifting 80kg (half way there already) and have restarted Portuguese lessons.

None of this was deliberated targeted at avoid Alzheimers but to stay healthy and actively, mentally and physically for as long as I can.

Bellringing? It's a social activity, with physical and mental exercise.

Local history research? There's quite a lot you can do online for free, and you could ask for contributions to a subscription to Find My Past for Christmas. For exercise you can get out and walk the area you're researching and take photographs. You might find there's a local history society you can join. If you really get stuck in, you could start a blog about your discoveries.

Why don’t you try DuoLingo?

I'm hoping to volunteer later in life but atm I care for my mum, have teen kids at home and a mad rescue dog who needs lots of training so I haven't really got the time right now but it's definitely something I would like to do, eventually.

I do love to read and need to put some time aside for it, I used to devour books but life gets in the way.

It's so sad, isn't it? My mum spent around 4 years crying every day fully aware she had dementia and she was petrified.

Mum knows who I am some days but other days will spend the whole time staring at me as though I am a complete stranger.

Horrible, evil disease.

I will listen to that, thank you.