prevention – Designing for Aged Care

Caregiving, International Campaigns, International Policies, Research & Best Practice

Dementia more preventable in Asia and Latin America

Posted on April 22, 2019April 18, 2019 by Joanna Sun

News Release
April 2019 | University College London, Gower Street, London – Dementia more preventable in Asia and Latin America

Close to one in two cases of dementia could be preventable in low- to middle-income countries, finds a new UCL study.

Dancing in Peru
The findings, published in The Lancet Global Health, found how improving childhood education and other health outcomes throughout life could reduce the risk of dementia.

“After our previous research finding that one in three cases of dementia could be preventable, we realised that the evidence was skewed towards higher-income countries,” said the study’s lead author, Dr Naaheed Mukadam (UCL Psychiatry).

“We have now found that in low- to middle-income countries in Asia and Latin America, dementia may be even more preventable than it is in more wealthy countries. If life-course risk factors such as low levels of education in early life and hearing loss, obesity and low physical activity in mid-life to old age are addressed, these countries could see large improvements in their dementia rates.”

While the number of people with dementia is increasing globally, particularly in low- to middle-income countries, there have been modest reductions in age-specific dementia rates in many high-income countries over the last two decades.* The researchers say this could be due to improvements in health outcomes throughout life that affect dementia risk.

The research team built on their previous work for the Lancet Commission on dementia prevention, intervention, and care, published in 2017, which found that 35% of dementia is attributable to nine risk factors: low levels of childhood education, hearing loss, smoking, hypertension, obesity, physical inactivity, social isolation, depression, and diabetes.*

To understand whether the commission’s findings would apply equally to global regions that were underrepresented in the report, a team of UCL researchers sought out data from China, India and Latin America. They drew from the research collective 10/66 Dementia Research Group’s data, which used similar methodology to gauge prevalence of the nine risk factors in those countries, with sample sizes of 1,000 to 3,000 in each country.

The researchers found even more potential for preventing dementia across the globe, as the proportion of dementia linked to the nine modifiable risk factors was 40% in China, 41% in India and 56% in Latin America.

A major factor in that difference is the lower levels of educational attainment in low- to middle-income countries, which the researchers say signals hope for the future, as education levels rise.

“People growing up in Asia and Latin America today are more likely to have completed schooling than their parents and grandparents were, meaning they should be less at risk of dementia later in life than people who are already over 65. Continuing to improve access to education could reap great benefits for dementia rates in years to come,” Dr Mukadam said.

On the other hand, social isolation is a major risk factor of dementia in higher income countries, but much less so in China and Latin America. The researchers say that public health officials in countries such as the UK could learn from China and Latin America in efforts to build more connected communities to buffer against the dementia risk tied to social isolation.

Obesity and hearing loss in mid-life, and physical activity in later life, were also strongly linked to dementia risk in the study area, as well as mid-life hypertension in China and Latin America and smoking in later-life in India.

“Reducing the prevalence of all of these risk factors clearly has numerous health benefits, so here we’ve identified an added incentive to support public health interventions that could also reduce dementia rates. The growing global health burden of dementia is an urgent priority, so anything that could reduce dementia risk could have immense social and economic benefit,” Dr Mukadam said.

Senior author Professor Gill Livingston (UCL Psychiatry) added: “A lot of the findings of health and medical research derive primarily from higher income countries such as in Western Europe and North America, so ensuring that research is inclusive is vital to the development of global public health strategies.”

“While we don’t expect these risk factors to be eliminated entirely, even modest improvements could have immense impact on dementia rates. Delaying the onset of dementia by just five years would halve its prevalence*,” she said.

The researchers are supported by the National Institute for Health Research UCLH Biomedical Research Centre, Wellcome, NIHR, Economic and Social Research Council, and NIHR Collaboration for Leadership in Applied Health Research and Care North Thames.

Links
Research paper in The Lancet Global Health
Dr Naaheed Mukadam’s academic profile
UCL Psychiatry
* The Lancet Commission on dementia, prevention, intervention and care
Image
People dancing in Peru. Credit: Alex Proimos, Source: Flickr
Media contact
Chris Lane
tel: +44 20 7679 9222

E: chris.lane [at] ucl.ac.uk

Caregiving, Research & Best Practice

FACTCHECK: Does eating two teaspoons of nuts really boost your brain function by 60%?

Posted on April 16, 2019April 12, 2019 by Joanna Sun

New Africa/Shutterstock

Sandra-Ilona Sunram-Lea, Lancaster University

Dementia is a cruel disease that robs people of their memory, their judgement and their identity. Unfortunately, there is no cure, and in the past few years a number of clinical trials for new dementia drugs have failed – the latest being Biogen’s drug aducanumab. Without any effective treatments on the horizon, most people’s best hope is to avoid getting dementia in the first place.

One of the hallmarks of dementia is cognitive decline. There are several lifestyle changes that may slow cognitive decline, such as doing mentally stimulating activities (crossword puzzles, learning a new language), getting plenty of exercise and maintaining a healthy diet – especially one low in saturated fats, refined carbohydrates and sugar.

Of these, diet is a favourite among health reporters, perhaps because the message can be delivered clearly and succinctly. The latest such story comes from the Daily Mirror which claims that eating just two teaspoons of nuts a day “boosts brain function by 60%”. If the claim is true, we should all be rushing out to buy a bag of nuts, but is this what the study actually says?

The article is based on an observational study published in the Journal of Nutrition Health and Aging. After assessing the diets of nearly 5,000 adults in China (aged 55 and older) over a period of nine years, the researchers found an inverse relationship between the amount of nuts people ate and the degree of cognitive decline they experienced. Those who consumed more than 10g of nuts and seeds a day were less likely to show a fall in their cognitive function compared with those who consumed less than 10g a day.

Out of the 4,822 participants in the study, 67% had their cognitive ability tested twice (only 16% were tested more than twice over the course of the study). Where more than one cognitive measurement was made, cognitive performance decreased over time, but people who ate more than 10g of nuts per day decreased the likelihood of this decline. Consequently, the results suggest that consuming two teaspoons of nuts per day may preserve cognitive performance and may lead to better cognitive ageing over a lifetime. The results do not show that eating nuts improves cognitive function, as the Mirror headline claimed.

A certain amount of cognitive decline is inevitable with age.
Andrea Danti/Shutterstock

Limitations

Participants in the study inevitably varied on a number of factors, including education, general health, nutritional intake and lifestyle factors, such as exercise. Although the way the data was analysed took those factors into account and still found an association, cognitive decline and dementia are strongly influenced by many environmental and genetic factors, and it is unlikely that consumption of one particular food is sufficient to ward off dementia.

Another weakness of this study is the fact that participants reported their nut consumption via a questionnaire. Evidence shows that self-reported food consumption should always be interpreted with caution.

Although randomised controlled trials indicate that eating nuts has an effect on blood flow (including to the brain), there isn’t enough evidence to draw conclusions about their impact on cognitive function.

What we can say at this point is that the evidence on nuts and cognitive decline is promising, but it isn’t strong enough to make nutritional recommendations. Simply consuming two teaspoons of nuts per day is unlikely to reduce your risk of dementia.

More on evidence-based articles about diets:

Sandra-Ilona Sunram-Lea, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Lancaster University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Caregiving, International Campaigns, The Built Environment

The impact on Green Spaces on your Child’s Brain Health

Posted on February 28, 2019November 1, 2019 by Joanna Sun

Press Release
February 2018 | Aarhus University – Being surrounded by green space in childhood may improve mental health of adults by Peter Bondo

Being surrounded by green space in childhood may improve mental health of adults

Children who grow up with greener surroundings have up to 55% less risk of developing various mental disorders later in life. This is shown by a new study from Aarhus University, emphasizing the need for designing green and healthy cities for the future.

[Translate to English:] Et nyt studie fra Aarhus universitet viser at børn, der vokser op med grønne omgivelser har op til 55% mindre risiko for at udvikle en psykisk lidelse senere i livet. Ifølge forskerne er integration af grønne omgivelser i byplanlægning vigtigt for at sikre grønne og sunde byer for eftertidens generationer. Modelfoto: Colourbox.dk

A new study from Aarhus University shows that children who grow up surrounded by high amounts of green space have up to 55% less risk of developing a mental disorder later in life. According to the researchers, integration of green space in urban planning is important to ensure green and healthy cities for the future generations. Model photo: Colourbox.dk.

A larger and larger share of the world’s population now lives in cities and WHO estimates that more than 450 millions of the global human population suffer from a mental disorder. A number that is expected to increase.

Now, based on satellite data from 1985 to 2013, researchers from Aarhus University have mapped the presence of green space around the childhood homes of almost one million Danes and compared this data with the risk of developing one of 16 different mental disorders later in life.

The study, which is published today in the prestigious American Journal PNAS, shows that children surrounded by the high amounts of green space in childhood have up to a 55% lower risk of developing a mental disorder – even after adjusting for other known risk factors such as socio-economic status, urbanization, and the family history of mental disorders.

The entire childhood must be green

Postdoc Kristine Engemann from Department of Bioscience and the National Centre for Register-based Research at Aarhus University, who spearheaded the study, says: “Our data is unique. We have had the opportunity to use a massive amount of data from Danish registers of, among other things, residential location and disease diagnoses and compare it with satellite images revealing the extent of green space surrounding each individual when growing up.”

Researchers know that, for example, noise, air pollution, infections and poor socio-economic conditions increase the risk of developing a mental disorder. Conversely, other studies have shown that more green space in the local area creates greater social cohesion and increases people’s physical activity level and that it can improve children’s cognitive development. These are all factors that may have an impact on people’s mental health.

“With our dataset, we show that the risk of developing a mental disorder decreases incrementally the longer you have been surrounded by green space from birth and up to the age of 10. Green space throughout childhood is therefore extremely important,” Kristine Engemann explains.

Green and healthy cities

As the researchers adjusted for other known risk factors of developing a mental disorder, they see their findings as a robust indication of a close relationship between green space, urban life, and mental disorders.

Kristine Engemann says: “There is increasing evidence that the natural environment plays a larger role for mental health than previously thought. Our study is important in giving us a better understanding of its importance across the broader population.”

This knowledge has important implications for sustainable urban planning. Not least because a larger and larger proportion of the world’s population lives in cities.

“The coupling between mental health and access to green space in your local area is something that should be considered even more in urban planning to ensure greener and healthier cities and improve mental health of urban residents in the future,” adds co-author Professor Jens-Christian Svenning from the Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University.

Further information:

Postdoc Kristine Engemann, Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World (BIOCHANGE) & Section for Ecoinformatics and Biodiversity, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, and The National Centre for Register-based Research, Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University. E-mail: engemann@bios.au.dk. Tel.: + 45 25368404.

Professor Carsten Bøcker Pedersen, The National Centre for Register-based Research, Department of Economics and Business, Aarhus BSS, Aarhus University. E-mail: cbp@econ.au.dk. Tel.: + 45 87165759.

Professor Jens-Christian Svenning, Centre for Biodiversity Dynamics in a Changing World (BIOCHANGE) & Section for Ecoinformatics & Biodiversity, Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University. E-mail: svenning@bios.au.dk. Tel.: 45+ 28992304.

Public / media

Caregiving, International Campaigns

Diseases through the decades – here’s what to look out for in your 40s, 60s, 80s and beyond

Posted on January 27, 2019November 1, 2019 by Joanna Sun

You’re another year older but that doesn’t have to mean poorer health.
Lorene Farrugia

Stephanie Harrison, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute; Azmeraw T. Amare, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute; Jyoti Khadka, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute; Maria Carolina Inacio, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute; Sarah Bray, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute, and Tiffany Gill, University of Adelaide

Many diseases develop and become more likely as we age. Here are some of the most common conditions, and how you can reduce your risk of getting them as you clock over into a new decade.

In your 40s

Maintaining a healthy weight can reduce the risk of developing arthritis, coronary heart disease, and other common and related conditions, including back pain, type 2 diabetes, stroke, and many cancers. But almost one-third of Australians in their 40s are obese and one in five already have arthritis.

From the age of 45 (or 35 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders), heart health checks are recommended to assess risk factors and initiate a plan to improve the health of your heart. This may include changing your diet, reducing your alcohol intake, increasing your physical activity, and improving your well-being.

Checks to identify your risk of type 2 diabetes are also recommended every three years from age 40 (or from age 18 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders).

If you don’t already have symptoms of arthritis or if they’re mild, this decade is your chance to reduce your risk of the disease progressing. Focus on the manageable factors, like shedding excess weight, but also on improving muscle strength. This may also help to prevent or delay sarcopenia, which is the decline of skeletal muscle tissue with ageing, and back pain.

Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight will set you up for decades of better health.
Sue Zeng

Most people will begin to experience age-related vision decline in their 40s, with difficulty seeing up close and trouble adjusting to lighting and glare. A baseline eye check is recommended at age 40.

In your 50s

In your 50s, major eye diseases become more common. Among Australians aged 55 and above, age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, diabetes-related eye diseases and glaucoma account for more than 80% of vision loss.

A series of health screenings are recommended when people turn 50. These preventive measures can help with the early detection of serious conditions and optimising your treatment choices and prognosis. Comprehensive eye assessments are recommended every one to two years to ensure warning signs are detected and vision can be saved.

National cancer screening programs for Australians aged 50 to 74, are available every two years for bowel and breast cancer.

To screen for bowel cancer, older Australians are sent a test in the post they can do at home. If the test is positive, the person is then usually sent for a colonoscopy, a procedure in which a camera and light look for abnormalities of the bowel.

In 2016, 8% of people screened had a positive test result. Of those who underwent a colonoscopy, 1 in 26 were diagnosed with confirmed or suspected bowel cancer and one in nine were diagnosed with adenomas. These are potential precursors to bowel cancer which can be removed to reduce your future risk.

To check for breast cancer, women are encouraged to participate in the national mammogram screening program. More than half (59%) of all breast cancers detected through the program are small (less than or equal to 15mm) and are easier to treat (and have better survival rates) than more advanced cancers.

In your 60s

Coronary heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (a disease of the lungs that makes breathing difficult), and lung cancer carry the biggest disease burden for people in their 60s.

If you’re a smoker, quitting is the best way to improve both your lung and heart health. Using evidence-based methods to quit with advice from a health professional or support service will greatly improve your chances of success.

Quitting smoking is the best way to improve your health.
Ian Schneider

The build-up of plaques in artery walls by fats, cholesterol and other substances (atherosclerosis) can happen from a younger age. But the hardening of these plaques and narrowing of arteries, which greatly increases the risk of heart disease and stroke, is most likely to occur from age 65 and above.

Exercise protects against atherosclerosis and research consistently shows any physical activity is better than nothing when it comes to heart health. If you’re not currently active, gradually build up to the recommended 30 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise on most, preferably all, days.

Other potentially modifiable risk factors for stroke include high blood pressure, a high-fat diet, alcohol consumption, and smoking.

Your 60s is also a common decade for surgeries, including joint replacements and cataract surgery. Joint replacements are typically very successful, but are not an appropriate solution for everyone and are not without risks. After a joint replacement, you’ll benefit from physiotherapy, exercise, and maintaining a healthy weight.

The treatment for cataracts is to surgically remove the cloudy lens. Cataract surgery is the most common elective surgery worldwide, with very low complication rates, and provides immediate restoration of lost vision.

In your 70s

Many of the conditions mentioned above are still common in this decade. It’s also a good time to consider your risk of falls. Four in ten people in their 70s will have a fall and it can lead to a cascade of fractures, hospitalisations, disability and injury.

Osteoporosis is one cause of falls. It occurs most commonly in post-menopausal women but almost one-quarter of people with osteoporosis are men. Osteoporosis is often known as a silent disease because there are usually no symptoms until a fracture occurs. Exercise and diet, including calcium and vitamin D, are important for bone health.

Exercise and diet can improve bone health.
Geneva, Switzerland

Older people are also vulnerable to mental health conditions because of a combination of reduced cognitive function, limitations in physical health, social isolation, loneliness, reduced independence, frailty, reduced mobility, disability, and living conditions.

In your 80s and beyond

Dementia is the second most common chronic condition for Australians in their 80s, after coronary heart disease – and it’s the most common for people aged 95 and above.

Many people think dementia is a normal part of the ageing process, but around one-third of cases of dementia could be prevented by reducing risk factors such as high blood pressure and obesity at mid-life.

Early diagnosis is important to effectively plan and initiate appropriate treatment options which help people live well with dementia. But dementia remains underdiagnosed.

Around 70% of Australians aged 85 and above have five or more chronic diseases and take multiple medications to manage these conditions. Effective medication management is critical for people living with multiple conditions because medications for one condition may exacerbate the symptoms of a different coexisting condition.

Stephanie Harrison, Research fellow, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute; Azmeraw T. Amare, Postdoc researcher, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute; Jyoti Khadka, Research Fellow, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute; Maria Carolina Inacio, Director, Registry of Older South Australians, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute; Sarah Bray, Registry of Older South Australians (ROSA) – Project Manager & Consumer Engagement Officer, South Australian Health & Medical Research Institute, and Tiffany Gill, Senior Research Fellow, University of Adelaide

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Caregiving, International Campaigns, International Policies, Research & Best Practice

How to reduce your risks of dementia

Posted on January 24, 2019November 1, 2019 by Joanna Sun

If you engage in cognitively stimulating activities in midlife, such as reading and playing games, you can reduce dementia risk by about 26 per cent, according to research.
(Unsplash/Rawpixel), CC BY-SA

Nicole Anderson, University of Toronto

Many people do not want to think about dementia, especially if their lives have not yet been touched by it. But a total of 9.9 million people worldwide are diagnosed with dementia each year. That is one person every 3.2 seconds.

This number is growing: around 50 million people live with dementia today, and this number will rise to over 130 million worldwide by 2030.

You do not have to wait until you are 65 to take action. In the absence of treatment, we must think of ways to protect our brain health earlier. This month is Alzheimer’s Awareness month — what better time to learn how to reduce your risk of dementia, whatever your age?

In my work at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute, I address cognitive, health and lifestyle factors in aging. I investigate how we can maintain our brain health, while reducing the risk of dementia as we age. Currently, I’m recruiting for two clinical trials that explore the benefits of different types of cognitive training and lifestyle interventions to prevent dementia.

There are three dementia risk factors that you can’t do anything about: age, sex and genetics. But a growing body of evidence is discovering early-life, mid-life and late-life contributors to dementia risk that we can do something about — either for our own or our children’s future brain health.

Before going any further, let’s clear up some common confusion between Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. Dementia is a term to describe the declines in cognitive abilities like memory, attention, language and problem-solving that are severe enough to affect a person’s everyday functioning. Dementia can be caused by a large range of diseases, but the most common is Alzheimer’s.

Risk factors in early life

Children born at a low birth weight for their gestational age are roughly twice as likely to experience cognitive dysfunction in later life.

Many studies have also identified a link between childhood socioeconomic position or educational attainment and dementia risk. For example, low socioeconomic status in early childhood is related to late life memory decline, and one meta-analysis identified a seven per cent reduction in dementia risk for every additional year of education.

A diet high in unrefined grains, fruit, vegetables, legumes, olive oil and fish has been linked to lower dementia rates.
(Unsplash/Ja ma), CC BY

Poorer nutritional opportunities that often accompany low socioeconomic position can result in cardiovascular and metabolic conditions such as hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes that are additional risk factors for dementia.

And low education reduces the opportunities to engage in a lifetime of intellectually stimulating occupations and leisure activities throughout life that build richer, more resilient neural networks.

Work and play hard in middle age

There is substantial evidence that people who engage in paid work that is more socially or cognitively complex have better cognitive functioning in late life and lower dementia risk. Likewise, engagement in cognitively stimulating activities in midlife, such as reading and playing games, can reduce dementia risk by about 26 per cent.

We all know that exercise is good for our physical health, and engaging in moderate to vigorous physical activity in midlife can also reduce dementia risk.

Aerobic activity not only helps us to maintain a healthy weight and keep our blood pressure down, it also promotes the growth of new neurons, particularly in the hippocampus, the area of the brain most responsible for forming new memories.

Stay social and eat well in later years

While the influences of socioeconomic position and engagement in cognitive and physical activity remain important dementia risk factors in late life, loneliness and a lack of social support emerge as late life dementia risk factors.

Seniors who are at genetic risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease are less likely to experience cognitive decline if they live with others, are less lonely and feel that they have social support.

You have heard that you are what you eat, right? It turns out that what we eat is important as a dementia risk factor too. Eating unrefined grains, fruit, vegetables, legumes, olive oil and fish, with low meat consumption — that is, a Mediterranean-style diet — has been linked to lower dementia rates.

Along with my Baycrest colleagues, we have put together a Brain Health Food Guide based on the available evidence.

What about Ronald Reagan?

Whenever I present this type of information, someone invariably says: “But my mother did all of these things and she still got dementia” or “What about Ronald Reagan?”

Playing games is proven to slow cognitive decline.
(Unsplash/Vlad Sargu), CC BY

My father earned a bachelor’s degree, was the global creative director of a major advertising firm, had a rich social network throughout adulthood and enjoyed 60 years of marriage. He passed away with Alzheimer’s disease. My experience with my dad further motivates my research.

Leading an engaged, healthy lifestyle is thought to increase “cognitive reserve” leading to greater brain resiliency such that people can maintain cognitive functioning in later life, despite the potential accumulation of Alzheimer’s pathology.

Thus, although all of these factors may not stop Alzheimer’s disease, they can allow people to live longer in good cognitive health. In my mind, that alone is worth a resolution to lead a healthier, more engaged lifestyle.

Nicole Anderson, Associate Professor of Geriatric Psychiatry, University of Toronto

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Caregiving, International Campaigns, Research & Best Practice

My Brain Robbie campaign aims to help your kids keep their brains healthy

Posted on January 11, 2019November 1, 2019 by Joanna Sun

News Release
January 2019 | Global Brain Health Institute – My Brain Robbie animation campaign aims to help keep little brains healthy

My Brain Robbie animation campaign aims to help keep little brains healthy

My Brain Robbie, a fantastic new initiative to promote brain health among school going children, has been launched through the Pilot Awards for Global Brain Health Leaders, an initiative of the Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI), Alzheimer’s Association and Alzheimer’s Society UK. The project includes an animated video of a little brain which helps children learn about the eight steps to keeping our brains healthy, along with free educational resources for parents and teachers.

The My Brain Robbie campaign aims to fill an educational gap in the field of dementia prevention by generating a public health educational initiative for children aged 6 to 12 years. It also aims to increase global public awareness of the importance of brain health across the lifespan, rather than it being considered that brain protection strategies are an issue only for the elderly.

The video and materials bring together the latest scientific research in neurology and epidemiology which encourage early prevention and lifelong healthy lifestyles to mitigate the risk of developing chronic brain diseases including Alzheimer’s disease. Recent studies project that up to 30% of dementia may be preventable by targeting modifiable risk factors. The initiative was developed by researcher, doctor/physician and Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at GBHI, Dr. Eleonore Bayen.

My Brain Robbie explains in child friendly language, the simple ways to keep our brain healthy using eight neuroprotective habits which connect with known modifiable risk factors for cognitive decline:

‘Learn’ touches on the role of education, cognitive stimulation and learning new things, in building cognitive reserve.
‘Be active’ describes the importance of physical activity and preventing sedentary lifestyles. Bad habits can develop as a result of spending too much time in front of electronic screens, a key issue for children, not to mention adults too!
‘Avoid head injuries’ looks at the prevention of traumatic brain injury.
‘Have a healthy diet’ refers to the “Mediterranean diet”. Another Atlantic Fellow, Claire McEvoy, among others has demonstrated the benefits of the ‘Mediterranean diet’ for brain health.
‘Avoid dangerous substances’ educates children in age-appropriate language about the dangers of tobacco and drug intake as well as excessive alcohol use.
‘Sleep well’ explains the importance of healthy sleep.
‘Take good care of your health’ looks at the importance of following medical care instructions for chronic diseases that can impact brain health, for example, hypertension.
‘Spend time with family and friends’ highlights the importance of social interaction for keeping our brains healthy.

My Brain Robbie, which was funded by GBHI and the Alzheimer’s Association, empowers children to maintain a healthy brain throughout their lives by providing them with simple public health messages. Dr Bayen hopes that, by providing information about brain health as part of early life education, this will create a shift in perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and stigma towards diseases of the brain, particularly dementia, in this generation and beyond.

Dr Bayen said: “This pilot arrives at a perfect time in history when the fight against dementia in high, low and middle income countries has become a top priority with an urgent need for innovative actions and “out of the box” thinking in prevention and care. While education at school offers us an amazing opportunity to fight stigma as well as social and health inequities, it appears that ‘dementia prevention and brain health at school’ is currently not being addressed and this would surely improve public awareness worldwide.”

She continued: “We hope that by teaching these important healthy brain habits to a younger generation that this may, in turn, educate upwards through the generations by motivating their parents and grandparents to learn more about the subject of brain health and dementia prevention. It may also, in turn, help to create a more supportive and inclusive living environment for people with neurocognitive disability and to create a feeling of optimism in a field of neurology where there have been limited therapeutic successes. Children are often wonderful teachers for their peers, parents, grandparents, and society at large.”

Dr Bayen worked in collaboration with a wide variety of experts such as neuroscientists, medical and health professionals, education specialists, teachers, parents, communication and design experts, as well as other Atlantic Fellows and faculty from GBHI.

The videos are currently available in English and French with plans to translate these into many more languages. My Brain Robbie welcomes interest from educators, health groups, parenting communities and others in sharing this initiative with as many children as possible.

She was inspired to develop the initiative during her Atlantic Fellowship with GBHI based at the University of California, San Francisco and Trinity College Dublin. GBHI focuses on protecting the world’s aging populations from threats to brain health. Collectively with partners, GBHI aims to reduce the scale and impact of dementia. The Pilot Awards for Global Brain Health Leaders is an initiative launched by GBHI and partners, the Alzheimer’s Association and the Alzheimer’s Society UK. The awards aim to support emerging leaders in brain health protection by funding small-scale innovative activities to delay, prevent, or mitigate the impact of dementia.

“Dr Bayen’s work is a wonderful example of GBHI’s approach to attaining a global impact on dementia prevention. It engages inter-professional contributions to development on a global scale. It also recognizes that brain protection is a life-long dialogue. Her innovative strategy of teaching children who will then engage in dialogue within households to ‘educate-up’ to parents and grandparents while reducing the stigma of dementia is timely.” said Victor Valcour, Executive Director of GBHI and the Atlantic Fellows for Equity in Brain Health program.

Dr Bayen said: “As a researcher and also a physician, I feel that my duty is not only to advance pure science but also to communicate it with others in creative ways. I hope that the My Brain Robbie campaign inspires children to feel responsible for their own brain health and to become aware of others’ brain health too.”

To watch and download the videos and materials please visit www.mybrainrobbie.org

Further Information

Dr Eleonore Bayen holds a Medical Degree with specialty training in Neurology and a PhD in Health Economics. She specializes in traumatic brain injury (TBI). She has advanced experience in architecting educational intervention programs about brain and disability for patients, family caregivers, and non-medical populations. Dr. Bayen was supported in her Atlantic Fellowship as a Fulbright grantee to the United States and was trained at the University of California, San Francisco site of GBHI in 2016. In this capacity, she was selected to be part of the first international class of the Atlantic Fellows who graduated from the Global Brain Health Institute in 2017. Bayen is currently an assistant professor in neuro-rehabilitation in Paris at Sorbonne University – La Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital.