What causes dementia? And how do we diagnose and treat it? Is there anything we can do to stop ourselves from developing dementia? These are the crucial questions we’ll be exploring with clinical neuropsychologist Barbara Sahakian, sociologist Richard Milne, and neurologist James Rowe. In this episode, we’ll find out more about what dementia actually is, some surprising factors that increase a person’s risk of developing dementia, and computer games that can actually help detect and diagnose dementia.
This episode was produced by Nick Saffell, James Dolan, Naomi Clements-Brod and Annie Thwaite.
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Timestamps:
[00:00] - Introductions
[01:10] - A bit about the guests’ research
[02:20] - Defining dementia and what causes it
[03:10] - Dementia and Alzehiemers
[03:10] - What we mean by the term neurodegenerative and tau proteins
[04:15] - How Dementia is different from normal aging
[05:15] - Who does dementia impact and the number of people in the UK who have dementia
[05:45] - One in three will get dementia. One in six over the age of 80 have dementia in the UK. WHO estimates 55 million people worldwide and this figure is set to rise to 78 million by 2030.
[07:10] -The impact on families and carers. What is the cost to the economy? Trillions globally.
[08:45] - The lifespan of dementia. How the combination of our genes puts us at a higher or lower risk of dementia. How this proceeds through adult life.
[10:20] - Normal ageing vs dementia
[12:35] - Time for a recap!
[16:40] - How do we detect dementia? Declines in cognition and the importance of episodic memory.
[18:35] - CANTAB: a tool to detect early Alzheimer’s disease
[20:05] - Establishing the value of early detection and early diagnosis.
[21:10] - APOE tests and the debate around if early diagnosis is useable information. Does it cause more worry and anxiety? What can be people do with the information?
[23:00] - Does this argument focus too much on the stigma associated with dementia. We should all want to know as we can do something around our own personal risk.
[24:40] - Should these risk factors simply be explained as steps that we should do anyway. Do we have to be given information about risk?
[25:15] - How can we reduce our risk of dementia? Early detection also allows people more time to get some treatments and their finances together.
[27:10] - Is there a way to look for the clumps of proteins in your brain? Physical test options.
[27:40] - it is less about technology. The bigger question is about how we use the information to reduce personal risk. Diagnosis, screening and preventative interventions.
[29:30] - The possibility for behaviour change? How do we put in place systems that change behaviour. Policy and health system change.
[31:00] - The risk factors - depression, social isolation, hearing loss, cognitive inactivity, air pollution.
[31:30] - Time for another recap!
[36:40] - Dementia isn’t just a problem for people over the age of 65. 42,000...
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