Baltimore County, MD Time of Your LIfe, 24 Mar 2016

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From YouTube: Aging 2016 Initiative, Brain Matters (Captioned)

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An interview with Dr. Daniel Storch, Key Point Health Services, about your brain and its effect on the memory.

A

Welcome back to the time of your life, I'm your host of a rasmussen, brain matters is the focus of today's show. Our next guest dr., Daniel storch, will discuss what you need to know about brain health. Welcome to the show thank.

B

You very much as.

A

You know the department of aging is initiative, for 2016 is brain matters. Let's begin by discussing some of the natural changes that occur in the brain with the aging process. Sure.

B

Aging, generate generally implies a decrease in structure and some decrease in function and reserved for the brain. This means the brain actually does get smaller, it loses mass loses volume. The space between the brain, deven circles get larger, and you can see this on MRI and cat scans also there's an accumulation of the damages that can occur through the years. So, for example, hypertension, can cause even microscopic changes that can accumulate.

B

So a theme that I'd like to state is that it's important to try to keep your brain as healthy as you as you can, and you do that by keeping your body as healthy as you can. Okay.

A

What, if any, does does the aging process affect mental function of an individual? Ok,.

B

Well, there's there's good and there's bad. Some of the good is that some of what's called like crystallized intelligence, the sort of can stay steady, so things like fund of information can even increase other things like vocabulary and word knowledge can stay the same, but there's also the negative that the more active reasoning can decline.

B

Some and particularly speed declines that doing time tasks take a big hit and also other things like it can take longer to learn things you can t you can teach an old dog new tricks, but it can take longer and you may need more effort. You can have more distractibility and maybe harder to do things when there's other things going on. It may be harder to multitask, but getting back to some of the good things again, you get wisdom and experience. So sometimes younger folks can come to a decision quicker, but it can be wrong.

B

As an older person, we've been through a lot, we have know how things go and we can sometimes get to a better decision. What.

A

Are some of the factors that play a role in sustaining good brain health? Well,.

B

The brain does interact with the rest of the body. So again the theme is trying to keep yourself healthy is is very important. For example, I said the brain declines gets smaller with age, so does the heart and the vessels can narrow, so you get less blood and the to the brain, and the brain requires more oxygen than any other organ in the body, so the lungs can decline. So you get less oxygen to the brain again, so it's important not to do any more harm.

B

So if you smoke it's very important to stop smoking, that's the single most important thing we can do for our help. Health is to stop smoking. The same way the liver can does decline. Maybe thirty percent, so it's important not to damage it further by drinking too much. The kidneys can decline one to two percent a year. So again it's important not to make this worse. Diabetes can affect the kidney and, if you're overweight, it can lead to diabetes and again affect the kidneys.

B

So you want to try to keep yourself healthy as possible and besides the brain and the body interacting together, the body and the brain interacts with the outside world. So you want to stay active socialized generally. People who socialize and have friendship groups do better than people who don't we've.

A

All heard the phrase use it or lose it in regard to memory function. Can you give us some advice as how our viewers can sustain their brain function? Well,.

B

It's very important to stay mentally alert. I was talking with somebody to Senior Center a couple of days ago plays bridge that's a good way to keep mentally alert other things. Crossword puzzles my mother used to do word jumbles so that's important, but again I'll get back to to trying to keep the brain healthy. You keep the body healthy things like exercise are so is so important. We used to think you can't make new brain cells, but exercise can actually stimulate the brain to make more brain cells through this brain derived.

B

Neurotrophic factor diet is so important, more and more we're talking about Mediterranean diets, more vegetarian diets, fruits, vegetables, olive oil, less red meat, less fried foods, less processed foods and again staying activism is important and having good socialization is important, trying to decrease stress, accentuating the positive get trying to stay away from the negative. Getting enough sleep again, stop smoking. If you smoke and the limit alcohol can.

A

You talk about some of the diseases of the brain that are associated with the aging process and when our viewers should talk to a physician when.

B

We talk about brain diseases in the old age. Often we talk about problems with memory, attention concentration, the general term, that we call dimensions and maybe about three to five percent of 65 year olds. Have dementia increases to maybe forty to forty-five percent in 80 year old people, but again it's important to know that most seniors don't have dementia, but of the dementia is the most common is Alzheimer's disease, so there's dementia and Alzheimer's is the most common about two-thirds of dementia or Alzheimer's, but there's a lot of other kinds as well.

B

It's important to be diagnosed early not only for planning, but some dementia is a few of them can be reversed like those due to fibroid problems or b12 deficiency. So it's important to get to get diagnosed early. Other conditions. Delirium is described as a fluctuation alertness and consciousness. Someone sort of seems out of it and we see a lot of this in the hospital. It can be caused by simple things like urinary tract infections and constipation, and if you treat this, the person can get back to baseline.

B

Again, we talked about the general medical illnesses, problems with the liver and the heart and the lungs, and if you treat these things too, that helps the brain and then emotional problems are so very important. That I've often said that getting old is not for sissies that there's lots of anxiety about your health, your people, you loves health money. Will you have enough money for retirement and every senior of net has also lost someone that is dear to them.

B

You don't get older without losing someone, so issues of loss and grief and depression also play a role now concerning a doctor, I feel that everyone especially seen you should have a primary doctor, and the idea of this is the primary doctor is sort of like the hub of the wheel and that the person gets to know you and what your baseline is and then can refer you when needed to the different specialties.

B

So concerning the doctor, I think it's important that you have a doctor and he and she gets to know you so then you can go from there. Do.

A

You have any last remarks that you would like to pass along in regard to this topic to our viewers. Well,.

B

What I hear from seniors over and over again is staying busy staying busy doing something you enjoy and then again I would just repeat the basic, healthy lifestyle. Things exercise, diet and activity of Baltimore County has 20 good senior centers and going there so and stop smoking limit alcohol and have a primary doctor. Thank.

A

You doctor for being with us to share this valuable information in support of our initiative. My.

B

Pleasure. Thank you. We're.

A

Going to take a short break when we return learn about senior center travel senior box office and what happening at your local, Senior, Center.