Hands to Help Seniors

Since the beginning of time people have been looking for the proverbial fountain of youth..  Some researchers believe they may have found something akin to this in a compound called rapamycin which seems to slow aging and the damage it can do, at least to certain cells. In the medical community, Mouse UT2598 is now viewed as a superstar.  The average lifespan for a mouse is 2.3 years but at more than 3 years old he is going strong and looks no different from his younger friends.  His fur is glossy, black and lean and he is surprisingly active considering he is about 100 years old in human years.  More impressive than what’s on the outside, however, is what’s on the inside.  His liver and heart function are those of a much younger mouse and his tendons have more spring and flexibility than they should.  There’s also less evidence than normal of tumors in his organ so he is less likely to get cancer than other mice.  In labs around the world, researchers are testing a number of drugs like rapamycin in the hopes that one day we can all be as healthy as Mouse UT2598 as we hit our stride at 100 years old.

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ElMindA has come out with a new device which can observe the effect of billions of neurons that fire when you think talk or breathe.  MRIs show us the roadways of the brain, CEO Ronen Gadot told FastCompany, but not the traffic.  The device uses up to 256 electrodes and sits on your head like a hairnet.  It can then monitor how brain networks respond to one another.  The technology was approved last July by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) and may help people with Alzheimer’s disease Parkinson’s, ADHD and PTSD.  For the first time, researchers say, they will be able to monitor the brain to see how it reacts to a new drug versus the brain on someone who is given a placebo.

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Heart disease is the number one killer in the United States and whether or not you develop it is partly out of your control (genetics) but mostly in your control (exercise and diet).  Many experts believe that in addition to having a diet high in vegetables and whole grains, many of us need to reduce our overall caloric intake and cut back on protein.  The Mediterranean Diet has long been looked at as an ideal model, and it’s delicious as well!  Although there is debate about what this diet actually consists of, it’s known that it contains a lot of fish, fruits and vegetables and extra virgin olive oil.  It’s also relatively low in protein compared to what Americans are used to eating (17% Mediterranean versus 35% for Americans).  And it’s not just heart disease which can be caused by eating a lot of animal proteins.  A study which was published in Cell Metabolism showed that middle-aged Americans who ate a lot of animal protein were more likely to die of cancer and other causes, compared to people who opted for plant-based proteins.  So think carefully about the benefits of switching to a more Mediterranean-style diet. 

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Using brain games to stave off the possibility of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease (or slow it for those with early-stage dementia) does help but experts warn that you shouldn’t be playing the same type of game over and over which just teaches you how to play the game and get better at it, but not much else.  “It’s like, you walk through fresh snow, you leave a trace.  If you walk the same route again, the trace gets deeper and deeper,” said Ursula Staudinger, director of the Butler Columbia Aging Center at Columbia University.  “The fact that structural changes occur [in the brain] does not imply that in general this brain has become more capable.  It has become more capable of doing exactly the tasks it was practicing,” she said.  In addition to trying various games, we find that getting a lot of social interaction does wonders for our senior clients, most of which are in their 90’s.  

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Researchers that were looking for a simple low-cost test for brain health found that asking patients to balance on one leg for at least 20 seconds worked.  It found that those who couldn’t complete the task may have problems.  Researchers said that those who couldn’t balance on one leg were more likely to have had silent strokes that damaged tiny blood vessels in the brain which affected balance, memory and thinking skills.  The average participant in the study was 67 years old.

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