Preventing Dementia

I just brought my dad for a dementia screening test in the polyclinic. The Singapore government provides a truly comprehensive suite of medical services for the elderly population and an efficient referral system. He was initially seeing the polyclinic doctor for a skin issue, but I steered the conversation towards dementia and he got his memory test done on the spot. 

This brings me to my first point – the primary way to delay the full onset of dementia is to recognize the early signs.

Before we continue, if you need some background on dementia please read here.

Anyway I was fast to catch on to the signs because I was given a brain health course when I certified under American Council of Exercise for senior physical training. During the course they emphasized on the link between exercise and prevention/delaying of dementia.

What did my dad do to worry me? He repeats the same statement multiple times, he forgets where he puts things, he reports feeling more tired despite claiming he slept well, he is always irritable and short-fused, he is always on Facebook doom-scrolling. Honestly it is hard for me to find examples but based on my mother’s accounts I got a little suspicious.

So how did he do for the test? He got 5/10 for the first one and 16/30 for the second one. Not great. I tested him and asked him what is my wife’s name – he gave a wrong first and last name. I asked him which year is it, he said 2005. At that point I am not sure if he is having dementia or just not giving a damn about life but I am not taking my chances. He will be following up with a geriatric physician next week.

Having read that the causes of dementia are varied and complex, what can the average person like myself do to safeguard my family against it? Dementia looks complex to address but I’m going to distil it into a single statement:

Fix Insulin Resistance.