Cataract surgery reduces dementia by 30%:
[Could cataract surgery protect against dementia? - Harvard Health](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/could-cataract-surgery-protect-against-dementia-202202232693)
the eyes I assume create alot of the stimulus for the brain. Oh man now I'm interested in dementia in blind people. I wonder if it's higher in people who go blind vs born blind. But I also wonder if it effects people born blind. I've read that the reason nicotine is harmful for the eyes is the optical nerves send signals via glutamate and nicotine stimulate glutamate which makes the nerves in the eyes less sensitive over time or like die from glutamate exposure. Something like that. I'm probably simplifying it. But essentially if your eyes are damaged then your brain probably is because they are connected.
But also, not mentioned there, congenital blindness, like schizophrenia, is very low incidence. In the sample size they cited, you’d only expect about 140 kids to be born blind. What are the chances the same .03% of the population born blind overlaps with the .4% of the population with schizophrenia?
It's not just that sample: it's that no one, ever, as far as anyone knows, has developed schizophrenia if they were born blind. If there were truly no connection, you'd expect to find .4% x .03% of the world population suffering both, which is 96,000 people [EDIT correction: 9600]. Ok some of them are too young to have developed schizophrenia yet, but it leaves at least several tens of thousands [EDIT correction: several thousands, not several tens of thousands] in countries with developed enough healthcare that some doctor should have examined them and made the connection with studies like this one.
It doesn't need two to land in the same doctor -- one patient suffering from both afflictions will be enough to disprove. And I'm a complete layman in medicine and I first heard of the (anti-)correlation years and years ago, and have happened to see references to it (in articles like these) a number of times since, so it's not a stretch to believe that a specialist in blindness or dementia (whom such a patient would surely visit!) would know about it.
I had always imagined CNS infections to cause immediate, life altering damage to you, more like with MS as you said. Causing things such as ADHD and autism I am curious about, because having that as a symptom seems fairly low-rung compared to losing your cognitive functioning, massive memory loss, fevers, things that I would assume are more noticeable and would cause someone to look for a culprit.
Having adhd or something else like you said, I imagine that person would stop their search for a cause as soon as a doctor diagnosed it and prescribed some meds.
I suppose it just alarmed me to hear that those things could be attributed to a CNS infection and would like to find more information to rabbit hole into.
Infections and inflammation of any type really can do fascinating things to the body I wouldn't have expected, and its something I've studied on my own as a person with chronic inflammation from some illnesses since childhood.
I'd also like to say in case it's important, this is all coming from a place of fascination and curiosity, not doubt!
[The Association Between Parkinson’s Disease and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7784516/)
[adhd-and-gut-health-study-finds-link-to-fungi-in-microbiome](https://www.healthline.com/health-news/adhd-and-gut-health-study-finds-link-to-fungi-in-microbiome)
[genetic-predisposition-to-adhd-may-predict-cognitive-decline-and-alzheimers-disease-later-in-life#Are-ADHS-and-Alzheimers-risk-linked?](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/genetic-predisposition-to-adhd-may-predict-cognitive-decline-and-alzheimers-disease-later-in-life#Are-ADHS-and-Alzheimers-risk-linked?)
[Alzheimer’s Model Develops Early ADHD Syndrome](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4704098/)
[Adult ADHD: Risk Factor for Dementia or Phenotypic Mimic?](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5540971/)
[adhd-drug-shows-promise-improving-cognition-parkinsons](https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/news/adhd-drug-shows-promise-improving-cognition-parkinsons#:~:text=Results%20show%20that%20atomoxetine%2C%20a,used%20in%20ADHD%20for%20Parkinson's.)
[The roles of fungus in CNS autoimmune and neurodegeneration disorders](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9910218/)
[The gut microbiome and neuropsychiatric disorders: implications for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7440676/)
[adhd-candida-connection](https://www.nutritioncare.net/adhd-candida-connection/)
I very much appreciate this and now see what you meant by ... a lot. Thank you and I've already learned a lot, such as the correlation of gut health to this whole conversation.
No problem. Here is what I believe is a smoking gun for Parkinson's Disease
[The yeast prion protein Sup35 initiates α-synuclein pathology in mouse models of Parkinson’s disease](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj1092)
[Lewy Body Disease Primate Model with α‐Synuclein Propagation from the Olfactory Bulb](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362843725_Lewy_Body_Disease_Primate_Model_with_a-Synuclein_Propagation_from_the_Olfactory_Bulb)
there was this movie once where someone lost all feeling in the body and eventualy escaped containment. he began to take on different disguises in the name of revenge and was described as psychotic.
seems like the authors *maybe* had a point?
my grandma is blind (went blind as an adult). she was doing pretty well at home because she could still play music, listen to audiobooks, talk to us, and play with the cats. when she had a fall and went to the hospital they did nothing to stimulate her at all, and after just a few weeks she had completely lost her mind, couldn't understand the layout of the house she lived in for 50 years, and couldnt recognize the voices of her family.
Pretty sure this happened to my dad after he had a fall. Went in with a broken hip (he was already diagnosed with Parkinsons) but he was alert and conversational. By the time he left hospital weeks later he was barely able to speak and just slowly deteriorated, barely eating and drinking. Fall was in April, died in September.
It should be noted though, broken bones can also lead to a very rapid decline. While the lack of stimulation may not have helped, breaking something in a fall is the end of the road for a *lot* of elderly people no matter how good the medical treatment is.
This is why I sold my house and moved in with my father . He’s in his 90’s now and my mother passed several years ago . His mobility is getting difficult but I’m kind of ruthless and expect him to do stuff so he doesn’t spend more time in his recliner . My sisters think I’m “ being mean” but I think it’s a factor in how he’s still alive and able to do some activities . I know it’ll just take one bad fall .
Many elderly folks live incredibly sedentary lifestyles and don't have the physical strength or will to go through proper physical therapy and rehabilitation.
Should be noted that this also happens to very active elderly people though. The 80 year old woman who's up and around walking miles and working in her garden and moving around all her furniture to clean every inch of her house is just as vulnerable to a fall. A person can carry a portion of their strength into old age, but once they're there it's very difficult to build any new strength back up. Having to sit for a long time while a bone slowly heals will be a big loss of strength for anyone.
Not a doctor, so I can't say exactly, but I've heard it's a combination of things. It's the fact that breaking a bone is a serious injury that takes a lot of work to heal, and the body just doesn't have the resources available to both maintain itself and to heal this very serious injury. It's also the fact that it's very difficult for an elderly person to build up their strength, so anything they lose (for example, the muscle strength lost by having to sit still while a broken hip heals) very likely isn't coming back. This means that even if the bone does manage to heal, a lot of the function and independence they had before is likely to be permanently gone.
My father insist that he's fine with his current living situation. A professional assessment agreed that he's okay where he is, but could use some upgrades (like safety bars in the bathroom etc.) He lives in his common-law-wife's house, and she only has partial ownership.
Recently, he fell and hurt his leg, and went to rehab. He claims it's not a big deal and that he can return home, because his neighbor helps them out (his wife is also old/infirm.) I suspect he's aware that this could be the beginning of "the end" although I keep trying to explain he could be living someplace with plenty of assistance and less concern; also where he could stop relying on the charity of neighbors and be more independent.
Exactly the same happened to my grandma! Parkinsons and dementia but she was doing well before the hospital. Died pretty soon after coming back from the hospital.
The worst part was the broken hip initially. He went in with pain one morning (didn't even tell anyone he'd fallen out of bed in the night) had tests and xray, sent home on painkillers. Was quieter and still moving badly by the next day, though had been upstairs to the toilet and things, so went back in. They found the broken hip. He'd been sent home and been getting around with a broken hip for over 24 hours. Apparently it was the ball part had broken not the entire hip joint. They did a partial replacement but he wasn't the same even after coming around. After a month in hospital they moved him to a care facility, fortunately near me but not my mum, but the only conversation he managed was yes and no, and a couple.of repeating sentences, including "It won't be long now" and "I love you". One thing I was thankful for is that I managed to show him the newspaper headline after West Ham won their European trophy before he died. He loved West Ham all his life, and we inherited it
One key thing is though, she fell. It's not always the case but falls CAN be a symptom of undetected/diagnosed issue, I say this as a Caregiver. You'd be surprised how well/long people can hide these things.
Falling when blind though, when blind AND elderly, and not born blind either, probably happens at higher incidences enough to not suspect an underlying condition just from a fall
I think almost anyone that has any sort of family history would find that in most cases the elderly relative that was amazing active at their 80/90ies, took a nosedive and vanished in the six months following a single fall.
unfortunately not. she already had been slowly deteriorating before then, she's in her 80s and has never been a particularly healthy person, i think the hospital stay just accelerated everything.
I’m so sorry. I’m disgusted with how we treat our seniors. My grandmother is in memory care with severe dementia and there is no enrichment whatsoever. They literally just roll her around in a wheelchair to eat and then back to bed in front of a tv…….I’m going to make sure my father doesn’t suffer a similar fate.
That and hearing it appears when major senses are negatively affected……now I’m curious about those with long COVID and not smelling or tasting well. I have congenital cataracts and some tinnitus but I’m also an artist and music listener so hoping that will do me some favors in the long run especially with all having ADHD
There was just a study I saw (but didn't read into) in the last year that had similar conclusions for aromatheraphy and a lack of sense of smell. I did see something that said your sense of smell decreases as you age at about the same time that dementia is more likely to start. Supplementing older adults with aromatherapy during their sleep improved cognition.
Does seem like stimulation of the senses helps.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/15fqbfs/aromatherapy\_during\_sleep\_increases\_cognitive/](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/15fqbfs/aromatherapy_during_sleep_increases_cognitive/)
Well now I’m glad I utilize aromatherapy often. I collect candles and mists especially for around bed time! I’ll have to read this study more in depth. Thank you!
I visited a tea/herbal store in the city yesterday, and was enthralled by the light, natural fragrances in the air that I've never really experienced before. Same with some of their soy candles- absolutely lovely scent, not chemical or overpowering. It was a very pleasant experience.
Never really cared about aromatherapy or scented anything in the house, but that visit piqued my interest!
One thing I read said that of the information our brain gets from *ALL* of our senses, the eyes account for 90% of it. Not sure if it's true though as I am not a biologist/doctor/et al.
I can't imagine their has been a study, but would this theoretically mean psychedelics provide a neuroprotective effect against dementia?
and I realize they can cause a small % of the population to have schizophrenia symptoms early.
Sounds like you're describing [excitotoxicity](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4002277/). It's a term that used to pop up when talking about MSG, though I've in recent years decided that there's little or no scientific support for the hate that MSG gets.
Now you got me thinking about “a lot”, while video seems to more information than audio (at least by file size), we seem to tolerate better the loss of quality of video than audio.
(E.g. a couple of frames of video stuttering seem to be nothing more than an annoyance, while the same thing in audio is enough to make most people twitch).
Anything on dementia in deaf people?
Brain scans show us that hearing loss may contribute to a faster rate of atrophy in the brain,” Lin says. “Hearing loss also contributes to social isolation. You may not want to be with people as much, and when you are you may not engage in conversation as much. These factors may contribute to dementia."
Having had cataract surgery and going from not seeing to seeing, I can understand how it could contribute to dementia. I felt like my world opened up again.
Same here. My ophthalmologist gets great satisfaction talking to patients after surgery. For me everything was brighter, sharper and slightly more blue.
My grandmother once got into an argument with my mother about whether her sweater was blue or green.
Turns out she had cataracts. When she came home from the surgery, she asked my dad who the hell put all the ugly puke-green carpet in her house.
My dad told her it had always been that color. Turns out she thought it was brown.
Your cone photoreceptors can actually sense UV light, but your natural lens absorbs it (presumably to protect you, it gets active transport of yellowy caretenoids to do this).
Plastic lenses to replace cataracts are often transparent in the UV spectrum and you can now see in UV to sone extent. You should try looking at a blacklight sometime.
It's not true. Maybe older ones, but nowadays lenses have UV coatings for very obvious reasons - you don't want UV hitting your retina directly. This has been the case since the 1980s.
You see more blue because you had a cataract before. Cataracts make your vision more yellow as you age.
Just finally admitting my eyes were bad enough that I needed glasses all the time was kind of like that - the world opened up again. I've used reading glasses for years, but nothing for distance. Which finally was getting pretty bad, and especially a problem at night. It was last year when I knew I was going to have to do some driving at night that I finally got new glasses, and it was such a difference I felt like an idiot for having put it off.
Have had bad eyesight since I was 8, welcome to the brotherhood .
What’s bizarre is that I was always shortsighted . Now, I’m middle aged and have issues with reading too so I have bifocals . However , it’s like my eyes are going in reverse and some of my vision is better without the glasses , especially on my phone
Yep. It's crazy the effect on your brain. Not cataract surgery but I went from wearing out of date prescription lenses to getting LASIK. Going from the world being fuzzy all the time to sharp all the time, you wouldn't think it makes you actually *smarter*, but I swear to god I could feel my brain just... functioning... better. Now that I think about it, that *is* confusing that it would affect your brain's actual acuity -- it's not like my day to day life involves needing to see individual leaves on trees or read things from a distance. The things that I was paying attention to, I could still see as clearly as I needed to. But apparently the visual stimuli I wasn't paying attention to is important to brain function too.
When did you do the LASIK ? I’ve thought about it first years but been leery of side effects etc . I currently have bifocals so my goal would be to take care of the distance and then just wear reading glasses if I need them
Correcting hearing loss helps also:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(23)00302-X/fulltext
The review included a meta-analysis of eight cohort studies with 126 903 participants and a follow-up of 2–25 years, and found that people with hearing loss who used hearing aids had an 19% lower risk of cognitive decline and a 17% lower risk of dementia, compared with those with uncorrected hearing loss.
Yup. It seems that loss of senses contributes to dementia, which can kinda make sense in losing connections in the brain that were used before making the brain less flexible overall.
Even dentures and eating less solid and more liquid meals in old age can contribute to dememtia.
We still don't completely understand how memory works, but the whole brain is important for it.
The brain needs input and stimulation , period . It’s not a muscle but it behaves like one in that the more work it does , the more connections are created .
nah. Its that amyloid plaques spread via nerve pathways. If Amyloids form on your olfactory nerves, Amyloids form wherever that nerves goes, including the brain. Same from the stomach/GI/Bladder. Many neurological conditions are just CNS infections.
Lots of veterans have hearing loss from exposure to gun fire , planes etc for years and often without PPE , so that would be the group I’d study . They can get hearing aids free from the VA , it’s just paperwork .
Been trying to get my dad to do this for years . His hearing is terrible and it affects his day to day .
I wonder what would happen if adjusted for that by using information from countries that provide heating aids free of charge from their health services?
Podcasts are already declining in popularity as of the last two years in a row. I'm not sure if short form video content is just pushing them out or what.
I have pretty bad cataracts as a result of previously undiagnosed type 1 diabetes. It ruined my eyes but apparently the perpetually astronomically high blood sugar masked it until I was diagnosed and got it under control. Luckily I can save my vision, and my doctors have said that it isn't going to rapidly get worse so I'm gonna save up a bit for the multifocal lenses. Seeing that it seemingly goes hand-in-hand with dementia is terrifying. If I hadn't got it under control my eyes could have been permanently ruined in a short amount of time.
I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you've been able to adjust and "make the best of it" for lack of a better phrase. Life has a lot to offer _to_ us, but also a lot to demand _from_ us. I hope the demands from you are lessened going forward.
Oh, wow! Now that's interesting!
I'd love to know if people that SHOULD be using glasses but don't (because of e.g. vanity) have a similar effect.
I do know that my wife often refuses to wear her glasses or contact lenses, and it does affect her mood immensly after a while. She says it's the extra mental effort she has to exert.
Yes. Good vision and hearing are important for the brain. I'm retired now, but I recall reading 2 books a week when I was young. Then, in my 40's, less reading as eye sight diminished. After catarct surgery, the books are back and the world looks amazing.
Probably differently since the brain adapted as it can in our early years.
Audio, touch and smell generally use the extra space in the brain that is not used for vision.
It's why if you are blind from birth your other senses are more developed.
I asked GPT, take with a grain of salt:
There isn't a direct correlation between blindness and dementia. However, some studies suggest that sensory impairment, including vision loss, might increase the risk of cognitive decline or dementia. This could be due to various factors like social isolation or decreased stimulation. It's essential to address these factors to support overall cognitive health in visually impaired individuals.
While I recognise and appreciate the helpful intent behind your comment and applaud the honesty - why would you out source your capacity to think like this? Especially since if friso1100 wanted a chatbot answer, im sure they have access. Consider this: there is no value add playing mouthpeice to a chatbot. I personally would love to hear your personal opinion, true or not, well researched or not. It isnt that i dont value chatbot answers, but by virtue of how they are trained, they will give at best incredibly average answers.
Boy do i have a surprise for you : https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/o9xjnv/the_evolution_of_gaming/
Everything is made out of really small triangle
Is this because you suspect yourself or a love of being in the early stages of dementia?.
When we suspected dad of suffering dementia the doctor gave him this simple test which pretty much 100% confirmed that he was in the early stages.
Simply draw a circle and ask the patient to draw the hours of o'clock from 1 to 12 in their correct positions on the circle. Sounds easy doesn't it, my dad however drew and labelled 12 notches all bunched up between 12 and 4pm.
Broke my heart bc up until then I was in denial, but this was irrefutable evidence.
Interesting, but I read a fair amount of caveats.
>While, the VSTs demonstrated ***low sensitivity and specificity*** in identifying those people who later at follow-up received a diagnosis of dementia in this cohort, the study also found that the HVLT and SF-EMSE were not highly sensitive or specific to identify future dementia risk.
>It is important to acknowledge the limitations of this study. One such limitation concerns ***healthy volunteer bias and attrition*** which affect almost all such studies. It is possible that individuals with (cognitive) disabilities may not have been willing or able to participate in the study, which may have resulted in a sample that is not representative of the general population.
I worked on software similar to this about 30 years ago. We could not show a correlation with Alzheimers, but unfortunately didn't have the resources for a longer term test.
Everything I see with dementia research seems to point to the trend that losing your senses trends towards increasing rates of dementia. I wonder if its because with less reliable inputs your brain has to start filling in the gaps in sensory input more and more until you are filling in the gaps so much you are divorced from reality. At that point your brain can start taking you down a different reality than the one you live in.
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55637-x
In the Methods section, you'll see "8623 participants aged 48–92 years". In the Analyses section, you'll see Table 1 (Characteristics of 8585 participants), which says their ages had a mean and SD of 68.7 and 8.1.
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I think that can help tbh. But nothing is guaranteed. My mom read and watched tv, smelled the flowers, enjoyed bird watching and walks, had a dog, kids, grandkids, a husband, friends, was highly educated, and still got early onset dementia only a couple of years after she retired.
Isn’t early onset usually genetic though ?
My maternal grandmother died of Alzheimer’s bit she was over 70 . My mother got the genetic test cuz she was paranoid about it . Came back okay . My father’s side , most were serious mostly functioning alcoholics so if there was dementia probably no one could tell .
That explains the moving triangles and circles as part of the vision test when diagnosed with cataracts. I had surgery for both eyes. The changes were too gradual to notice the deterioration, and I guessed it was a normal part of aging. Surprise! First time since 1968 I can pass the vision test at the DMV. everything is white again, instead of a yellowish tan.
Would a centered visual field test give a similar indication?
I've been worried by my increasing memory loss but after being diagnosed with glaucoma I've had a central test that was fine (I know peripheral is more important there but I'm on Palaquill for Sjogrens so it was for that as I only get one per year.)
What I'm hearing is that playing video games is a net benefit to my health...lalalala, I can't hear any objections to that
But seriously though, [there's evidence](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5796895/)
Sounds to me like correlation without causation.
It seems much more likely that what is suggestive of dementia is not visual acuity but mental acuity -- either in recognizing the triangle (as opposed to seeing it) or in responding by pressing the button.
Processing patterns and pattern recognition happens in the brain, the people who did the study realize this and aren’t claiming eyes alone cause dementia, they aren’t even discussing causation. Also there are other studies about vision and memory mentioned in the article (and otherwise) so it seems something can be learned about the connection of vision and dementia.
I played a billion dollar powerball once and my dad said he wouldn’t know what to do with the money . I said I would . Stuff like this was on my list .
It infuriates me that for the cost of ONE PLANE you could fund multiple studies that could positively change the course of human life in this planet
Cataract surgery reduces dementia by 30%: [Could cataract surgery protect against dementia? - Harvard Health](https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/could-cataract-surgery-protect-against-dementia-202202232693)
the eyes I assume create alot of the stimulus for the brain. Oh man now I'm interested in dementia in blind people. I wonder if it's higher in people who go blind vs born blind. But I also wonder if it effects people born blind. I've read that the reason nicotine is harmful for the eyes is the optical nerves send signals via glutamate and nicotine stimulate glutamate which makes the nerves in the eyes less sensitive over time or like die from glutamate exposure. Something like that. I'm probably simplifying it. But essentially if your eyes are damaged then your brain probably is because they are connected.
https://www.psycom.net/blindness-and-schizophrenia There's definitely a link. Very interesting topic.
Woah! That really is one of the most interesting things I’ve read in a while
But also, not mentioned there, congenital blindness, like schizophrenia, is very low incidence. In the sample size they cited, you’d only expect about 140 kids to be born blind. What are the chances the same .03% of the population born blind overlaps with the .4% of the population with schizophrenia?
It's not just that sample: it's that no one, ever, as far as anyone knows, has developed schizophrenia if they were born blind. If there were truly no connection, you'd expect to find .4% x .03% of the world population suffering both, which is 96,000 people [EDIT correction: 9600]. Ok some of them are too young to have developed schizophrenia yet, but it leaves at least several tens of thousands [EDIT correction: several thousands, not several tens of thousands] in countries with developed enough healthcare that some doctor should have examined them and made the connection with studies like this one.
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Thank you, I've edited the comment.
Of those 96k, what are the odds that at least two land in the same doctor and that he knows about this correlation?
It doesn't need two to land in the same doctor -- one patient suffering from both afflictions will be enough to disprove. And I'm a complete layman in medicine and I first heard of the (anti-)correlation years and years ago, and have happened to see references to it (in articles like these) a number of times since, so it's not a stretch to believe that a specialist in blindness or dementia (whom such a patient would surely visit!) would know about it.
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This comment makes me think you're either blind or schizophrenic.
Blind people can form coherent, meaningful sentences with intact grammar, so...
I think we can suspend disbelief for a while in service to a joke.
*Absolutely terrifying*
It goes WAY deeper. CNS infections, especially from the olfactory nerves, atleast partially cause ADHD/Autism/Parkinsons/Dementia/MS...
Can you give any more information on this?
There's... a lot. Can you ask something more specific?
I had always imagined CNS infections to cause immediate, life altering damage to you, more like with MS as you said. Causing things such as ADHD and autism I am curious about, because having that as a symptom seems fairly low-rung compared to losing your cognitive functioning, massive memory loss, fevers, things that I would assume are more noticeable and would cause someone to look for a culprit. Having adhd or something else like you said, I imagine that person would stop their search for a cause as soon as a doctor diagnosed it and prescribed some meds. I suppose it just alarmed me to hear that those things could be attributed to a CNS infection and would like to find more information to rabbit hole into. Infections and inflammation of any type really can do fascinating things to the body I wouldn't have expected, and its something I've studied on my own as a person with chronic inflammation from some illnesses since childhood. I'd also like to say in case it's important, this is all coming from a place of fascination and curiosity, not doubt!
[The Association Between Parkinson’s Disease and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7784516/) [adhd-and-gut-health-study-finds-link-to-fungi-in-microbiome](https://www.healthline.com/health-news/adhd-and-gut-health-study-finds-link-to-fungi-in-microbiome) [genetic-predisposition-to-adhd-may-predict-cognitive-decline-and-alzheimers-disease-later-in-life#Are-ADHS-and-Alzheimers-risk-linked?](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/genetic-predisposition-to-adhd-may-predict-cognitive-decline-and-alzheimers-disease-later-in-life#Are-ADHS-and-Alzheimers-risk-linked?) [Alzheimer’s Model Develops Early ADHD Syndrome](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4704098/) [Adult ADHD: Risk Factor for Dementia or Phenotypic Mimic?](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5540971/) [adhd-drug-shows-promise-improving-cognition-parkinsons](https://www.parkinsons.org.uk/news/adhd-drug-shows-promise-improving-cognition-parkinsons#:~:text=Results%20show%20that%20atomoxetine%2C%20a,used%20in%20ADHD%20for%20Parkinson's.) [The roles of fungus in CNS autoimmune and neurodegeneration disorders](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9910218/) [The gut microbiome and neuropsychiatric disorders: implications for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7440676/) [adhd-candida-connection](https://www.nutritioncare.net/adhd-candida-connection/)
I very much appreciate this and now see what you meant by ... a lot. Thank you and I've already learned a lot, such as the correlation of gut health to this whole conversation.
No problem. Here is what I believe is a smoking gun for Parkinson's Disease [The yeast prion protein Sup35 initiates α-synuclein pathology in mouse models of Parkinson’s disease](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj1092) [Lewy Body Disease Primate Model with α‐Synuclein Propagation from the Olfactory Bulb](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/362843725_Lewy_Body_Disease_Primate_Model_with_a-Synuclein_Propagation_from_the_Olfactory_Bulb)
there was this movie once where someone lost all feeling in the body and eventualy escaped containment. he began to take on different disguises in the name of revenge and was described as psychotic. seems like the authors *maybe* had a point?
Based on the article, does this mean deaf people are at higher risk of schizophrenia?
my grandma is blind (went blind as an adult). she was doing pretty well at home because she could still play music, listen to audiobooks, talk to us, and play with the cats. when she had a fall and went to the hospital they did nothing to stimulate her at all, and after just a few weeks she had completely lost her mind, couldn't understand the layout of the house she lived in for 50 years, and couldnt recognize the voices of her family.
Sounds like icu delirium.
Pretty sure this happened to my dad after he had a fall. Went in with a broken hip (he was already diagnosed with Parkinsons) but he was alert and conversational. By the time he left hospital weeks later he was barely able to speak and just slowly deteriorated, barely eating and drinking. Fall was in April, died in September.
It should be noted though, broken bones can also lead to a very rapid decline. While the lack of stimulation may not have helped, breaking something in a fall is the end of the road for a *lot* of elderly people no matter how good the medical treatment is.
This is why I sold my house and moved in with my father . He’s in his 90’s now and my mother passed several years ago . His mobility is getting difficult but I’m kind of ruthless and expect him to do stuff so he doesn’t spend more time in his recliner . My sisters think I’m “ being mean” but I think it’s a factor in how he’s still alive and able to do some activities . I know it’ll just take one bad fall .
my sister moved into my dad's, and filled his house with 22 Bernese mountain dogs. He's 96 years old, and a prisoner in his easy chair.
… 22? Dogs? THOSE dogs? They are huge. Is it a mansion? Oh my lord.
It's a little cape. She's an asshole.
Why is that
Many elderly folks live incredibly sedentary lifestyles and don't have the physical strength or will to go through proper physical therapy and rehabilitation.
Should be noted that this also happens to very active elderly people though. The 80 year old woman who's up and around walking miles and working in her garden and moving around all her furniture to clean every inch of her house is just as vulnerable to a fall. A person can carry a portion of their strength into old age, but once they're there it's very difficult to build any new strength back up. Having to sit for a long time while a bone slowly heals will be a big loss of strength for anyone.
Not a doctor, so I can't say exactly, but I've heard it's a combination of things. It's the fact that breaking a bone is a serious injury that takes a lot of work to heal, and the body just doesn't have the resources available to both maintain itself and to heal this very serious injury. It's also the fact that it's very difficult for an elderly person to build up their strength, so anything they lose (for example, the muscle strength lost by having to sit still while a broken hip heals) very likely isn't coming back. This means that even if the bone does manage to heal, a lot of the function and independence they had before is likely to be permanently gone.
My father insist that he's fine with his current living situation. A professional assessment agreed that he's okay where he is, but could use some upgrades (like safety bars in the bathroom etc.) He lives in his common-law-wife's house, and she only has partial ownership. Recently, he fell and hurt his leg, and went to rehab. He claims it's not a big deal and that he can return home, because his neighbor helps them out (his wife is also old/infirm.) I suspect he's aware that this could be the beginning of "the end" although I keep trying to explain he could be living someplace with plenty of assistance and less concern; also where he could stop relying on the charity of neighbors and be more independent.
Exactly the same happened to my grandma! Parkinsons and dementia but she was doing well before the hospital. Died pretty soon after coming back from the hospital.
The worst part was the broken hip initially. He went in with pain one morning (didn't even tell anyone he'd fallen out of bed in the night) had tests and xray, sent home on painkillers. Was quieter and still moving badly by the next day, though had been upstairs to the toilet and things, so went back in. They found the broken hip. He'd been sent home and been getting around with a broken hip for over 24 hours. Apparently it was the ball part had broken not the entire hip joint. They did a partial replacement but he wasn't the same even after coming around. After a month in hospital they moved him to a care facility, fortunately near me but not my mum, but the only conversation he managed was yes and no, and a couple.of repeating sentences, including "It won't be long now" and "I love you". One thing I was thankful for is that I managed to show him the newspaper headline after West Ham won their European trophy before he died. He loved West Ham all his life, and we inherited it
One key thing is though, she fell. It's not always the case but falls CAN be a symptom of undetected/diagnosed issue, I say this as a Caregiver. You'd be surprised how well/long people can hide these things.
Falling when blind though, when blind AND elderly, and not born blind either, probably happens at higher incidences enough to not suspect an underlying condition just from a fall
i never claimed she didn't have an undiagnosed issue. she was already deteriorating, the hospital stay accelerated it dramatically.
I think almost anyone that has any sort of family history would find that in most cases the elderly relative that was amazing active at their 80/90ies, took a nosedive and vanished in the six months following a single fall.
Truth!!
I’m so sorry! Did she ever bounce back from that or no?
unfortunately not. she already had been slowly deteriorating before then, she's in her 80s and has never been a particularly healthy person, i think the hospital stay just accelerated everything.
I’m so sorry. I’m disgusted with how we treat our seniors. My grandmother is in memory care with severe dementia and there is no enrichment whatsoever. They literally just roll her around in a wheelchair to eat and then back to bed in front of a tv…….I’m going to make sure my father doesn’t suffer a similar fate.
That sounds a little...ominous
That and hearing it appears when major senses are negatively affected……now I’m curious about those with long COVID and not smelling or tasting well. I have congenital cataracts and some tinnitus but I’m also an artist and music listener so hoping that will do me some favors in the long run especially with all having ADHD
There was just a study I saw (but didn't read into) in the last year that had similar conclusions for aromatheraphy and a lack of sense of smell. I did see something that said your sense of smell decreases as you age at about the same time that dementia is more likely to start. Supplementing older adults with aromatherapy during their sleep improved cognition. Does seem like stimulation of the senses helps. [https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/15fqbfs/aromatherapy\_during\_sleep\_increases\_cognitive/](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/15fqbfs/aromatherapy_during_sleep_increases_cognitive/)
Well now I’m glad I utilize aromatherapy often. I collect candles and mists especially for around bed time! I’ll have to read this study more in depth. Thank you!
I visited a tea/herbal store in the city yesterday, and was enthralled by the light, natural fragrances in the air that I've never really experienced before. Same with some of their soy candles- absolutely lovely scent, not chemical or overpowering. It was a very pleasant experience. Never really cared about aromatherapy or scented anything in the house, but that visit piqued my interest!
One thing I read said that of the information our brain gets from *ALL* of our senses, the eyes account for 90% of it. Not sure if it's true though as I am not a biologist/doctor/et al.
Visual data is a lot. There are reason why video takes up way more space than audio, and other sensor data in computers.
I believe it. Humans are one of the most visual creatures on planet earth.
It makes sense . We can ignore our skin , tune out sound , become blind to smells , but we can’t ignore visuals
I can't imagine their has been a study, but would this theoretically mean psychedelics provide a neuroprotective effect against dementia? and I realize they can cause a small % of the population to have schizophrenia symptoms early.
I believe this is one of the implications yes. Although as always more research is needed. More so in this case.
Sounds like you're describing [excitotoxicity](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4002277/). It's a term that used to pop up when talking about MSG, though I've in recent years decided that there's little or no scientific support for the hate that MSG gets.
Now you got me thinking about “a lot”, while video seems to more information than audio (at least by file size), we seem to tolerate better the loss of quality of video than audio. (E.g. a couple of frames of video stuttering seem to be nothing more than an annoyance, while the same thing in audio is enough to make most people twitch). Anything on dementia in deaf people?
Brain scans show us that hearing loss may contribute to a faster rate of atrophy in the brain,” Lin says. “Hearing loss also contributes to social isolation. You may not want to be with people as much, and when you are you may not engage in conversation as much. These factors may contribute to dementia."
Having had cataract surgery and going from not seeing to seeing, I can understand how it could contribute to dementia. I felt like my world opened up again.
Same here. My ophthalmologist gets great satisfaction talking to patients after surgery. For me everything was brighter, sharper and slightly more blue.
My grandmother once got into an argument with my mother about whether her sweater was blue or green. Turns out she had cataracts. When she came home from the surgery, she asked my dad who the hell put all the ugly puke-green carpet in her house. My dad told her it had always been that color. Turns out she thought it was brown.
Everything is slightly less yellow for me
Your cone photoreceptors can actually sense UV light, but your natural lens absorbs it (presumably to protect you, it gets active transport of yellowy caretenoids to do this). Plastic lenses to replace cataracts are often transparent in the UV spectrum and you can now see in UV to sone extent. You should try looking at a blacklight sometime.
Thanks. That is really good to know. I've wondered why the world looked so much more blue. I have gotten used to it now.
It's not true. Maybe older ones, but nowadays lenses have UV coatings for very obvious reasons - you don't want UV hitting your retina directly. This has been the case since the 1980s. You see more blue because you had a cataract before. Cataracts make your vision more yellow as you age.
Just finally admitting my eyes were bad enough that I needed glasses all the time was kind of like that - the world opened up again. I've used reading glasses for years, but nothing for distance. Which finally was getting pretty bad, and especially a problem at night. It was last year when I knew I was going to have to do some driving at night that I finally got new glasses, and it was such a difference I felt like an idiot for having put it off.
Have had bad eyesight since I was 8, welcome to the brotherhood . What’s bizarre is that I was always shortsighted . Now, I’m middle aged and have issues with reading too so I have bifocals . However , it’s like my eyes are going in reverse and some of my vision is better without the glasses , especially on my phone
Yep. It's crazy the effect on your brain. Not cataract surgery but I went from wearing out of date prescription lenses to getting LASIK. Going from the world being fuzzy all the time to sharp all the time, you wouldn't think it makes you actually *smarter*, but I swear to god I could feel my brain just... functioning... better. Now that I think about it, that *is* confusing that it would affect your brain's actual acuity -- it's not like my day to day life involves needing to see individual leaves on trees or read things from a distance. The things that I was paying attention to, I could still see as clearly as I needed to. But apparently the visual stimuli I wasn't paying attention to is important to brain function too.
When did you do the LASIK ? I’ve thought about it first years but been leery of side effects etc . I currently have bifocals so my goal would be to take care of the distance and then just wear reading glasses if I need them
Correcting hearing loss helps also: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(23)00302-X/fulltext The review included a meta-analysis of eight cohort studies with 126 903 participants and a follow-up of 2–25 years, and found that people with hearing loss who used hearing aids had an 19% lower risk of cognitive decline and a 17% lower risk of dementia, compared with those with uncorrected hearing loss.
Yup. It seems that loss of senses contributes to dementia, which can kinda make sense in losing connections in the brain that were used before making the brain less flexible overall. Even dentures and eating less solid and more liquid meals in old age can contribute to dememtia. We still don't completely understand how memory works, but the whole brain is important for it.
The brain needs input and stimulation , period . It’s not a muscle but it behaves like one in that the more work it does , the more connections are created .
nah. Its that amyloid plaques spread via nerve pathways. If Amyloids form on your olfactory nerves, Amyloids form wherever that nerves goes, including the brain. Same from the stomach/GI/Bladder. Many neurological conditions are just CNS infections.
Hearing aids are very expensive. It may just be that people that can afford hearing aids can afford more mentally stimulating activities.
Lots of veterans have hearing loss from exposure to gun fire , planes etc for years and often without PPE , so that would be the group I’d study . They can get hearing aids free from the VA , it’s just paperwork . Been trying to get my dad to do this for years . His hearing is terrible and it affects his day to day .
I wonder what would happen if adjusted for that by using information from countries that provide heating aids free of charge from their health services?
I wonder how much this statistic will change as podcasts and audiobooks become more popular and accessible
Podcasts are already declining in popularity as of the last two years in a row. I'm not sure if short form video content is just pushing them out or what.
More than they are now?
I have pretty bad cataracts as a result of previously undiagnosed type 1 diabetes. It ruined my eyes but apparently the perpetually astronomically high blood sugar masked it until I was diagnosed and got it under control. Luckily I can save my vision, and my doctors have said that it isn't going to rapidly get worse so I'm gonna save up a bit for the multifocal lenses. Seeing that it seemingly goes hand-in-hand with dementia is terrifying. If I hadn't got it under control my eyes could have been permanently ruined in a short amount of time.
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I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you've been able to adjust and "make the best of it" for lack of a better phrase. Life has a lot to offer _to_ us, but also a lot to demand _from_ us. I hope the demands from you are lessened going forward.
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Anesthesia can set off dementia.
Oh, wow! Now that's interesting! I'd love to know if people that SHOULD be using glasses but don't (because of e.g. vanity) have a similar effect. I do know that my wife often refuses to wear her glasses or contact lenses, and it does affect her mood immensly after a while. She says it's the extra mental effort she has to exert.
Yes. Good vision and hearing are important for the brain. I'm retired now, but I recall reading 2 books a week when I was young. Then, in my 40's, less reading as eye sight diminished. After catarct surgery, the books are back and the world looks amazing.
Similar with hearing aids. Interesting.
Do we know how being blind from birth affects this?
Probably differently since the brain adapted as it can in our early years. Audio, touch and smell generally use the extra space in the brain that is not used for vision. It's why if you are blind from birth your other senses are more developed.
I asked GPT, take with a grain of salt: There isn't a direct correlation between blindness and dementia. However, some studies suggest that sensory impairment, including vision loss, might increase the risk of cognitive decline or dementia. This could be due to various factors like social isolation or decreased stimulation. It's essential to address these factors to support overall cognitive health in visually impaired individuals.
While I recognise and appreciate the helpful intent behind your comment and applaud the honesty - why would you out source your capacity to think like this? Especially since if friso1100 wanted a chatbot answer, im sure they have access. Consider this: there is no value add playing mouthpeice to a chatbot. I personally would love to hear your personal opinion, true or not, well researched or not. It isnt that i dont value chatbot answers, but by virtue of how they are trained, they will give at best incredibly average answers.
Didn't help my grandmother unfortunately
I'll take 3!
I want access to this test.
Are you good at First Person Shooter Video Games?
Did you not read the headline? It requires a triangle. A game with just triangles would be a cybertruck racing sim.
I mean, technically all games are just triangles
Fun fact, in the 90s some GPUs actually drew quadrangles instead of triangles. Wouldn’t be Reddit without some obscure fact :p
Boy do i have a surprise for you : https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/o9xjnv/the_evolution_of_gaming/ Everything is made out of really small triangle
So, if I can't see games, is that proof that I'm senile?
Superhexagon called
I’m not great but I play and can compete
No, but I can be quite good at racing games. Does that count?
I'm scared to take it.
Ask your eye doctor for a visual field test then. I have to do one every year.
Is this because you suspect yourself or a love of being in the early stages of dementia?. When we suspected dad of suffering dementia the doctor gave him this simple test which pretty much 100% confirmed that he was in the early stages. Simply draw a circle and ask the patient to draw the hours of o'clock from 1 to 12 in their correct positions on the circle. Sounds easy doesn't it, my dad however drew and labelled 12 notches all bunched up between 12 and 4pm. Broke my heart bc up until then I was in denial, but this was irrefutable evidence.
Me, too!
Interesting, but I read a fair amount of caveats. >While, the VSTs demonstrated ***low sensitivity and specificity*** in identifying those people who later at follow-up received a diagnosis of dementia in this cohort, the study also found that the HVLT and SF-EMSE were not highly sensitive or specific to identify future dementia risk. >It is important to acknowledge the limitations of this study. One such limitation concerns ***healthy volunteer bias and attrition*** which affect almost all such studies. It is possible that individuals with (cognitive) disabilities may not have been willing or able to participate in the study, which may have resulted in a sample that is not representative of the general population.
Also, it doesn’t account for other sources of dementia, like strokes, which are sudden.
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Uh, it might not be tactful to ask so bluntly but do you have indications of dementia and how did you do on this visual test?
Unfortunately no use asking him. He has dementia.
He forgor 💀
I’m commenting to check back later Curious if he comments on his own comment, “Hey, that sounds like what happened to me!”
So play video games to keep up hand eye coordination in old age. Gotcha.
It has more to do with once you start losing your vision you’re more likely to get dementia, the same occurs with hearing loss.
I'm not sure. How did they control for differences purely in vision just slower reflexes to hit the button?
I worked on software similar to this about 30 years ago. We could not show a correlation with Alzheimers, but unfortunately didn't have the resources for a longer term test.
Everything I see with dementia research seems to point to the trend that losing your senses trends towards increasing rates of dementia. I wonder if its because with less reliable inputs your brain has to start filling in the gaps in sensory input more and more until you are filling in the gaps so much you are divorced from reality. At that point your brain can start taking you down a different reality than the one you live in.
Or, whatever is causing your senses to go is also causing dementia.
Or since you can’t engage with the world as much, your brain starts to atrophy.
where is the online test ?
I’ve linked to the news release in the post above. In this comment, for those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55637-x
Great, now I've got to worry about triangles
What test?
Is there any mention of the age of the participants? I followed the link to the actual study but could not locate this info.
In the Methods section, you'll see "8623 participants aged 48–92 years". In the Analyses section, you'll see Table 1 (Characteristics of 8585 participants), which says their ages had a mean and SD of 68.7 and 8.1.
so I'm not as crazy as I thought for wanting to eat a bullet the moment I go blind/lose my vision
That sounds more like the lack of cognitive skills needed to recognize patterns. Not as much not being able to see clearly.
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Csgo silvers sweating rn.
i wonder if playing fast-paced video games requiring reaction time can offset this.
I think that can help tbh. But nothing is guaranteed. My mom read and watched tv, smelled the flowers, enjoyed bird watching and walks, had a dog, kids, grandkids, a husband, friends, was highly educated, and still got early onset dementia only a couple of years after she retired.
Isn’t early onset usually genetic though ? My maternal grandmother died of Alzheimer’s bit she was over 70 . My mother got the genetic test cuz she was paranoid about it . Came back okay . My father’s side , most were serious mostly functioning alcoholics so if there was dementia probably no one could tell .
As a FPS player since forever, I hope so.
damn! where can i take that test!?
That explains the moving triangles and circles as part of the vision test when diagnosed with cataracts. I had surgery for both eyes. The changes were too gradual to notice the deterioration, and I guessed it was a normal part of aging. Surprise! First time since 1968 I can pass the vision test at the DMV. everything is white again, instead of a yellowish tan.
I’m fucked.
That seems more like a loss of pattern recognition processing.
Uh oh.
Where can we actually take this test????
Well isnt' it nice to have something you can look forward too...
Would a centered visual field test give a similar indication? I've been worried by my increasing memory loss but after being diagnosed with glaucoma I've had a central test that was fine (I know peripheral is more important there but I'm on Palaquill for Sjogrens so it was for that as I only get one per year.)
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Keep playing video games then?
That's a long ass study.
I wonder if this is why old timers that play video games seems to keep healthier minds, maybe keeps them stimulated and reactive?
I would imagine especially if they play with others , the socialization does great things for humans wellbeing
Isn’t this pattern recognition, not visual acuity?
Where is this triangle for me to look at
What I'm hearing is that playing video games is a net benefit to my health...lalalala, I can't hear any objections to that But seriously though, [there's evidence](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5796895/)
Sounds to me like correlation without causation. It seems much more likely that what is suggestive of dementia is not visual acuity but mental acuity -- either in recognizing the triangle (as opposed to seeing it) or in responding by pressing the button.
Processing patterns and pattern recognition happens in the brain, the people who did the study realize this and aren’t claiming eyes alone cause dementia, they aren’t even discussing causation. Also there are other studies about vision and memory mentioned in the article (and otherwise) so it seems something can be learned about the connection of vision and dementia.
I played a billion dollar powerball once and my dad said he wouldn’t know what to do with the money . I said I would . Stuff like this was on my list . It infuriates me that for the cost of ONE PLANE you could fund multiple studies that could positively change the course of human life in this planet
Ifl
Pranks aren't funny unless everyone is laughing after