Eye health related to brain health in older adults

June, 2012
  • A large, long-running study has found cognitive decline and brain lesions are linked to mild retinal damage in older women.

Damage to the retina (retinopathy) doesn’t produce noticeable symptoms in the early stages, but a new study indicates it may be a symptom of more widespread damage. In the ten-year study, involving 511 older women (average age 69), 7.6% (39) were found to have retinopathy. These women tended to have lower cognitive performance, and brain scans revealed that they had more areas of small vascular damage within the brain — 47% more overall, and 68% more in the parietal lobe specifically. They also had more white matter damage. They did not have any more brain atrophy.

These correlations remained after high blood pressure and diabetes (the two major risk factors for retinopathy) were taken into account. It’s estimated that 40-45% of those with diabetes have retinopathy.

Those with retinopathy performed similarly to those without on a visual acuity test. However, testing for retinopathy is a simple test that should routinely be carried out by an optometrist in older adults, or those with diabetes or hypertension.

The findings suggest that eye screening could identify developing vascular damage in the brain, enabling lifestyle or drug interventions to begin earlier, when they could do most good. The findings also add to the reasons why you shouldn’t ignore pre-hypertensive and pre-diabetic conditions.

Reference: 

Related News

A study involving over 180,000 older veterans (average age 68.8 at study start), of whom 29% had PTSD, has revealed that those with PTSD had a significantly greater risk of developing dementia.

Following on from previous research with mice that demonstrated that a diet rich in

A study involving over 1100 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease at 50 French clinics has revealed that receiving a comprehensive care plan involving regular 6-monthly assessments (with standardised guidelines for the management of problems) produced no benefits compared to receivi

A small study suggests that the apathy shown by many Alzheimer's patients may not simply be due to memory or language problems, but to a decreased ability to experience emotions.

Confirming previous research, a study involving 270 Alzheimer’s patients has found that larger head size was associated with better performance on memory and thinking tests, even when there was an equivalent degree of brain damage.

Anticholinergics are widely used for a variety of common medical conditions including insomnia, allergies, or incontinence, and many are sold over the counter.

While brain training programs can certainly improve your ability to do the task you’re practicing, there has been little evidence that this transfers to other tasks.

A review of the many recent studies into the effects of music training on the nervous system strongly suggests that the neural connections made during musical training also prime the brain for other aspects of human communication, including learning.

A rat study demonstrates how specialized brain training can reverse many aspects of normal age-related cognitive decline in targeted areas. The month-long study involved daily hour-long sessions of intense auditory training targeted at the primary auditory cortex.

Another study has come out showing that older adults with low levels of vitamin D are more likely to have cognitive problems. The six-year study followed 858 adults who were age 65 or older at the beginning of the study.

Pages

Subscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest newsSubscribe to Latest health newsSubscribe to Latest news
Error | About memory

Error

The website encountered an unexpected error. Please try again later.