Lifestyle

Remember the old Garmin Navigation systems that we would use in our vehicles? We would put in the address of our desired destination and the system would navigate us to that spot. If we missed a turn, there would be a voice that would immediately announce “RE-CALCULATING.” That not only made it obvious that you made an error, but to everyone else riding along in your vehicle! By alerting us immediately, however, we were able to get “back on track” and focused on reaching our final destination.

In my last column, I mentioned a training I had attended with information from the Alzheimer’s Association. One statistic really stood out and I’ve been thinking a lot about its significance. “Up to 40% of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by targeting modifiable risk factors.” While certain risk factors like age, genetics, race, and gender are non-modifiable, some small shifts in our lifestyles can lead to healthy habits which lower the risk of developing cognitive decline.

Years ago when I directed the singing group One Accord out of Clara City, we would end our season the end of April. This was a very smart idea as those who participated would become extremely busy in May with prom events, spring sporting events (whether as a participant or a spectator), spring concerts, awards banquets, etc. The month of May was always jammed packed with activities and events – concluding with the Memorial Day program and studying for final tests. The end of the school year always seemed hectic! For those families with a graduating senior, there probably was a party to plan, food to prepare, and house projects to complete. (I remember my dad installed a new kitchen sink in our farmhouse the day of my sister’s Baccalaureate – and we had neighbors and friends coming over that same evening to celebrate! Probably wasn’t exactly the timing my mom had in mind!)

Through a series of newspaper articles, we have been learning about some of the major types of dementia. We started with Alzheimer’s type dementia which is the most common type of dementia. We then explored Lewy Body dementia and learned that that can either refer to dementia with Lewy bodies or Parkinson’s disease dementia. The next article focused on Frontotemporal Dementia to which we discovered there are 5 main types: Behavioral Variant, Primary Progressive Aphasia, Corticobasal Syndrome, Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, and FTD with ALS. In the last article, we explored Vascular Dementia, the second most common form of dementia. Today, we are going to learn about Mixed Dementia.

Do you belong to a book club, study group, learning circle or other gathering where people get together to connect around reading or education? If so, you may be interested in checking out one of the three titles that Prairie Five has available in our Book Bag collection. Each book bag has 12-15 copies of the same book title and a discussion guide. I’m happy to serve as the discussion leader if you’re considering this for a community event.

In previous articles, I have been writing about the different types of dementia. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, there are 11 different major types of dementia – however as we have learned, there are then different variants / sub-types under those 11 major types. In fact, dementia expert Teepa Snow claims in total there are over 120 different types, causes and forms of dementia. For our purposes, I think we will stick with just some of the most common types!