WEDNESDAY, Aug. 27 (HealthDay News) -- In their golden years, men and women who remain free of dementia will nonetheless undergo an accelerated drop in key mental skills as much as 15 years before their death, a new study reveals.

Verbal ability, spatial reasoning and perceptual speed are the specific victims of this cognitive decline, which is not, the researchers stressed, a routine part of the aging process.

LONDON — Margaret Thatcher's daughter says she first realized that her mother was having memory problems when the former prime minister struggled to distinguish between the 1982 Falklands War and the conflict in Bosnia.

In an excerpt from her memoir, due to be published next month, Carol Thatcher charts her mother's decline _ and describes the day in 2000 that she first understood her mother was being robbed of her memory.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/25...

TUESDAY, Aug. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Yearly changes in a person's performance on cognitive testing may be associated with dementia, new research suggests.

Using a newly developed model to assess the effect of variations in a person's score from year to year, researchers found that just a one point change in variability on cognitive test scores could indicate as much as a fourfold increase in the risk of developing dementia.

FRIDAY, Aug. 15 (HealthDay News) -- Memory loss and confusion often provide the first clues to the onset of dementia. But recent research suggests that physical -- not mental -- impairment may be an earlier harbinger of trouble.

In a study involving more than 2,200 adults aged 65 and older, walking and balance problems were early indicators of future dementia. Poor handgrip was a later sign of developing dementia.

The findings, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, suggest a link between brain health and physical fitness.

MONDAY, July 28 (HealthDay News) -- Rates of dementia in developing countries have been greatly underestimated, according to researchers who used a specially-developed method of calculating dementia prevalence.

Previous studies have suggested that rates of dementia in developing countries are much lower than in high-income countries. However, the quality and evidence base of these studies are poor, according to the authors of the new study, who are members of the 10/66 Research Group.

FRIDAY, June 27 (HealthDay News) -- The key to a healthy mind in old age may lie in an active social life, a new study suggests.

"If you are socially engaged, you are at lower risk of dementia," said Dr. Valerie C. Crooks, a researcher at the Department of Research and Evaluation, Kaiser Permanente Southern California.

During her study, which followed more than 2,200 women ages 78 and older for four years, those with large social networks reduced their risk of getting dementia by 26 percent, she said.

Low Childhood IQ Tied to Dementia in Old Age

byBy Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, June 25 -- Your IQ in childhood may predict your odds of getting a common form of dementia in old age, according to Scottish researchers who turned to 76-year-old test scores to come to that conclusion.

"This study draws on unique childhood IQ data and finds that lower childhood IQ increases risk of vascular dementia, but not the most common cause of dementia, Alzheimer's disease," said study co-author John M. Starr, a professor of health and aging at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

By Amanda Gardner
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, May 5 (HealthDay News) -- People who use the painkiller ibuprofen regularly for five years may be less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease as they age, a new study suggests.

By Amanda Gardner
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, May 5 (HealthDay News) -- People who use the painkiller ibuprofen regularly for five years may be less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease as they age, a new study suggests.

WEDNESDAY, April 23 (EmpowHer's HealthDay News) -- An enzyme shown to help suppress development of Alzheimer's disease appears to hasten progress of a related but far less common type of dementia, according to a new study. The surprising findings, published in the April 22 online issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation, are significant, because individuals with frontotemporal dementia with parkinsonism-17 -- a relatively rare hereditary form of dementia -- are often used as models for studying Alzheimer's disease.