14 “Rules” to Reduce the Risk of Dementia Throughout Your Life

The development of dementia it can be avoided. Intervene on the modifiable risk factorsstarting from childhood and continuing throughout life, can in fact help to prevent or delay by many years nearly half of cases of dementia.
To reduce the risk of neurodegenerative disorders later in life, the Italian Society of Neurology He also released some recommendations addressed to the individual, but above all to the institutionsso that they can support them by implementing possible intervention plans to promote them and ensure their application.

The recommendations suggested by the SIN to reduce the risk of dementia over the course of a lifetime there are 14, and exactly:

1.Offer aschool education of good quality by encouraging higher education;

2.Promote lifelong learning at different stages of life by supporting University of the Third Age and voluntary association activities;

3.Promote theuse of helmet and head protection when using scooters and bicycles, in high-risk workplaces and during contact sports activities;

4.Reduce exposure toenvironmental and food pollution through rigorous policies for a clean and healthy environment;

5.Expand measures to reduce the cigarette smokesuch as price controls, raising the minimum age for purchasing and banning smoking in public places, including outdoors;

6.Reduce the alcohol consumption and expand measures to reduce excessive consumption of spirits in meeting places;

7.Promotion of a fight againstinsulation and to the loneliness at all ages by promoting the creation of community environments and supportive housing to combat social hardship;

8.Promote an active prevention campaign of vision and hearing disorders in the logic of the One Health approach, promoting ophthalmological and audiological screening at the age of 65;

9.Promotion of the Dental health making dental screening accessible to all through the involvement of the Medical and Dental Associations;

10.Monitor the triglyceride and cholesterol levels together with the glycemia and LDL cholesterol, starting from the age of 35 by promoting a campaign to prevent eating disorders;

11.Monitor levels of blood pressure periodically starting from the age of 35, reducing the use of salt in foods;

12.Prevent and treat the sleep disorders through sleep hygiene education;

13.Identify early the mood disorders also through the involvement of the Order of Psychologists, promoting timely care by Psychiatry in treatment centers;

14.Promote an active information campaign in schools and workplaces in favour of ahealthy eating and of a constant physical activity even at advanced ages.

The importance of these actions for the future of health in Italy

These actions are particularly important in light of new evidence showing that Reducing the risk of dementia not only increases years of healthy life, but also reduces the time that people who develop dementia spend in poor health.in support of the need for early diagnosis and secondary prevention interventions.

“A healthy lifestyle, which includes regular physical exercise, not smoking, regular sleep, providing cognitive and mental stimulation even outside of formal education and which avoids excessive use of alcohol and promotes a balanced diet rich in vegetables and fruit, is not only able to reduce the risk of dementia, but can also delay its onset as well as slow its progression”, he commented. Alessandro Padovani, President of SIN. “This has huge implications for quality of life for individuals and cost-saving benefits for societies.”

In a study published in the journal The Lancet Healthy Longevity Naaheed Mukadam (UCL Psychiatry) and co-authors modelled the economic impact of implementing some of these recommendations, using England as an example. Their findings suggest that using population-based interventions of known effectiveness to address dementia risk factors could have a profound effect on dementia prevalence and inequalities, as well as significant cost savings.
According to SIN estimates, by adopting these measures, Italy could achieve savings on current costs of approximately 10 billion euros in 20 years, to be used to implement support activities for patients and their families.