While everyone that works at AAHSA has their own valuable skill set to offer, not everyone has an advanced degree. However, I may have motivated some of my coworkers to consider matriculating once again, after circulating a recent report.
According to a new study published in the Oct. 21 edition of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, education and mentally demanding occupations may help stave off memory loss associated with Alzheimer?s disease.
Over a 14 month period, researchers followed 144 people with no memory problems, 242 people with Alzheimer?s disease, and 72 people with mild cognitive impairment, a condition in which a person has problems with memory, language, or another mental function severe enough to be noticeable to other people and to show up on tests, but not serious enough to interfere with daily life.
The researchers tested the participants? memory and cognitive skills, and used brain scans to measure changes in the brain glucose metabolism, which is used to measure the change and damage caused by the progression of Alzheimer?s disease.
The study results showed that when comparing people with the same kind of mental impairment, those with more education and more mentally demanding occupations actually had more changes and damage than people with less education and less mentally demanding jobs.
However, the brains of those with better education may be able to ?compensate for the damage,? allowing them to remain functional even with the damage, study author Valentina Garibotto, M.D, of the San Raffaele University and Scientific Institute and the National Institute of Neuroscience in Milan, Italy, said in a release.
Dr. Garibotto said the education and occupations may actually help to ?create a buffer against the effects of dementia on the brain, or a cognitive reserve.?
To help explain the findings, the good doctor offered two explanations. Her first idea is that the education and type of occupation may help make the brain stronger. The other hypothesis is that the ?genetic factors that enabled people to achieve higher education and occupational achievement might determine the amount of brain reserve.?
Still, said Garibotto, it is unclear which of the two explanations accounts for the study results.
Original source: http://futureofaging.wordpress.com/?p=951
