While there is much speculation over what causes Alzheimer's Disease, many believe that there are things that you can do to prevent they symptoms of Alzheimer's or at best, diminish the symptoms so that they are more tolerable. Such activities that you can participate in are activities that are focused around exercising your mind. For instance, crossword puzzles, brain teasers, word search and trivia games are all great ways to engage your mind. The worst thing that you could do is sit at home and do nothing but watch television.
There seems to be a higher correlation among older Americans who develop Alzheimer's when they are in their sixties because this is also a common age for many people to retire. When many people retire, they feel as if they have worked long enough and should be able to enjoy some time doing nothing for a while. For my own grandmother, she had worked many years as a nanny and then as a chef. While she was working, she was active- often taking many group trips around the country with her friends. However, when she retired, she decided to take a break from everything for a little while. She became a sort of recluse, staying in her apartment or only going for short walks around her apartment building area. She also loved to watch television in her free time. She wasn't keeping her brain active by doing anything engaging, an it wasn't long before we started to notice that she was beginning to have difficulty remembering little things. After almost a year of not really doing much of anything, we noticed a dramatic decrease in her ability to function on her own. Everything from writing by hand to remembering where items around her apartment were, were increasingly difficult for her. She seemed to be losing her mind out of nowhere.
It is only in retrospect that we can now see that she had the beginning symptoms of Alzheimer's. Eventually, things became so bad that my mother and I were in fear of something happening to her. She was now an elderly woman living on her own- still able to function but in clear need of some assistance. A few years ago (when we discovered all of this), we contacted social services to have a live-in aid placed in her apartment. My grandmother didn't even remember how to feed herself properly. I would hand her a banana to eat and then watch as not even five minutes later, she would reach for another one, not remembering that she had already eaten. Sometimes she would claim that she had already eaten, when in fact she hadn't.
Today, both my mother and I are convinced that while my grandmother may have been predisposed to getting Alzheimer's Disease, her symptoms could've been greatly reduced if she had done something- anything- to get out of her apartment and stay active versus watch television all day or sleep.
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