Personally this is a difficult topic for me.  My mother had advanced Alzheimer’s Disease in the last two years of her life.  It was so bad that she could not speak. She could not recognize me.  She could not recognize my sister.  Basically she was a vegetable.  She died two months before her 96^th birthday.  Until that loss of cognizance she had a very wonderful life.

Looking back on her senior years I knew something was wrong when she drove her car into cupboards in the garage.  She refused a pill organizer box my sister bought her. She was actually angry that the box was bought.  Small memory problems became apparent about 10 years before those horrible last two.  Never overweight and very well educated her favorite games were Bridge and Mahjong.  She did not suffer from high blood pressure, high cholesterol and other diseases common to the elderly.

Most recently there have been articles posted and printed recommending more exercise as a way of reducing the chance of dementia.  There was also an article saying most elderly have the bodies of 40 year olds.  Wouldn’t that indicate we are being careful of what we eat and are obtaining adequate exercise?  If that is accurate then what would additional exercise do for our minds?

Forget Prevagen.  The Federal Trade Commission and New York’s attorney general charged Quincy Bioscience, maker of Prevagen, with fraud for selling a memory supplement based on a glowing jellyfish protein.  Prevagen isn’t FDA approved.

Mayo Clinic posts this on their web site: Scientists believe that for most people, Alzheimer’s disease is caused by a combination of genetic, lifestyle and environmental factors that affect the brain over time. Less than 5 percent of the time, Alzheimer’s is caused by specific genetic changes that virtually guarantee a person will develop the disease. Your risk of developing Alzheimer’s appears to be somewhat higher if a first-degree relative — your parent or sibling — has the disease. Scientists have identified rare changes (mutations) in three genes that virtually guarantee a person who inherits them will develop Alzheimer’s. But these mutations account for less than 5 percent of Alzheimer’s disease.

People with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) have memory problems or other symptoms of cognitive decline that are worse than might be expected for their age, but not severe enough to be diagnosed as dementia.

There’s no lifestyle factor that’s been definitively shown to reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

However Mayo Clinic says some evidence suggests that the same factors that put you at risk of heart disease also may increase the chance that you’ll develop Alzheimer’s. Examples include:

• Lack of exercise
• Obesity
• Smoking or exposure to secondhand smoke
• High blood pressure
• High blood cholesterol
• Poorly controlled type 2 diabetes
• A diet lacking in fruits and vegetables

These risk factors are also linked to vascular dementia, a type of dementia caused by damaged blood vessels in the brain. Working with your health care team on a plan to control these factors will help protect your heart — and may also help reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.

It does not appear there is any specific cause of dementia.  With an aging and older population the world is in for many more cases of this disease.

My mother died from the disease.  My father lived to 86.  He was sharp as a tack until he had a stroke. He had high blood pressure for years.  I don’t have that disease.

I think I have chance of living to my mid 90s without a stroke or dementia.