As America gradually gets older — the result of longer lifespans, dental implants, and falling birth rates — the dementia epidemic has been appearing in the news media more and more often. Which is a good thing, because we keep forgetting about it, as we gradually lose our marbles.
In that regard, I heard an interesting discussion about dementia on NPR last Friday. (Or maybe it was Saturday?)
Luckily, NPR posted the same information on their website because I couldn’t recall much about the show, other than there was a doctor who thought we could avoid dementia by doing… I don’t know… something?
Something to do with diet, or exercise, or getting better sleep. Things I would probably be willing to do, if I could remember what they were.
According to the NPR website, the doctor whose name I’d forgotten was Jonathan Rosand, co-founder of the McCance Center for Brain Health at Massachusetts General Hospital. He and his collaborators developed a way to gauge and track brain health, with a 0-21 point scale they called the “brain care score.” 21 is a perfect score.
According to Dr. Rosand, we can substantially reduce our risk of dementia through lifestyle choices.
You can calculate your score in about five minutes, here. You get points — either 0, 1, 2, or 3 points — for each lifestyle choice.
For example, a current smoker earned zero points on the “Smoking” question. But “Never smoked or quit more than a year ago” would entitle you to 3 points.
I tried the quiz, and found it was pretty easy to cheat and get a higher score.
A study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry found that each five-point increase in the McCance ‘brain care score’ was associated with a 33% lower risk of late-life depression, and a 27% lower composite risk of dementia, stroke and depression.
Dr. Kevin Sheth, co-author of that study, said, “Very few people can have a perfect score. The goal is to have the best score that you can, and monitor it over time.”
Which is why I thought getting a high score was important, even if I had to cheat. But I didn’t want a perfect score, because then there’s no way to improve. That’s sort of my philosophy in life: leave yourself lots of room for future improvement.
A few of the questions — about your physical health — were challenging, unless you’ve had a recent physical exam and your doctor measured things like blood pressure and body mass index. I wasn’t able to find the printout from my last exam — and you would understand why, if you saw the mess I call ‘my office’. So I just picked the highest score for those questions, which was probably accurate. But who really knows?
Some of the lifestyle choices suggested by the ‘brain care score’ seem unrealistic, however. Like, they wanted me to eat “4.5 servings of fruits and vegetables per day” and have fewer than two alcoholic drinks per week. My diet is, like, the exact opposite, where vegetables and alcohol are concerned.
Also, one of the ‘Social-Emotional’ questions was, “I have few or no close connections other than my spouse or children.” Since my divorce, I no longer have a spouse… but I do have a cat, and to be perfectly honest, my connection with my cat is much closer than I ever had with my wife.
And who can talk to their kids? I can’t even understand the words they use nowadays. My ongoing hearing loss doesn’t help, except for the fact that half of what my kids say is nonsense anyway.
In spite of my excellent brain care score, I wonder if the scientists were actually measuring the correct lifestyle choices? There might be other factors that play into successful brain care, that the scientists completely missed taking into consideration. And some of those choices could be worth more than 3 points, in my opinion.
In the “Smoking” question, for example, they could ask, “Smoke marijuana occasionally” and give you 2 points. And “Smoke marijuana at least two times a day” could be worth, like, 5 points.
Of course, if you smoke marijuana at least two times a day, you probably wouldn’t make it through all the questions.
But… would it even matter?