Systematic Review on the Impact of Intelligence on Cognitive Decline and Dementia Risk. Background: Previous studies have shown that an intellectually stimulating lifestyle is associated with a lower risk for cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease and related dementia (ADRD).
In addition, highly intelligent people have been found, on average, to show clinical signs of Alzheimer's later than the general population. Once they do, they decline much faster. Thought to reflect their greater mental reserves, this different pattern may call for a different approach to diagnosis.
Researchers have long theorized that mental ability may be linked to cognitive function and dementia during aging. Several studies have indicated that factors such as years of education, occupation or performance on military entrance tests are linked to dementia progression.
Age. The biggest risk factor for dementia is ageing. This means as a person gets older, their risk of developing dementia increases a lot. For people aged between 65 and 69, around 2 in every 100 people have dementia.
Heart Disease
That can slow blood flow to your brain and put you at risk for stroke, making it harder to think well or remember things. And many things that cause heart disease -- tobacco use, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol -- also can lead to dementia.
Older adults with more education are less likely to develop dementia; they spend a larger portion of their lives cognitively healthy and fewer years with dementia.
Common early symptoms of dementia
memory loss. difficulty concentrating. finding it hard to carry out familiar daily tasks, such as getting confused over the correct change when shopping. struggling to follow a conversation or find the right word.
Women have a greater risk of developing dementia during their lifetime. In fact, around twice as many women have Alzheimer's disease – the most common type of dementia – compared to men. The main reason for this greater risk is because women live longer than men and old age is the biggest risk factor for this disease.
If you often find yourself forgetting that you made plans with a friend or why you needed to go to the shops, then don't be too hard on yourself - you might be smarter than you think. New research by the University of Toronto found that being forgetful could actually be a sign of greater intelligence.
The takeaway:
Your individual IQ will not change as you age, but on average our intelligence does decrease with age.
Like most aspects of human behavior and cognition, intelligence is a complex trait that is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors.
They are predicted to have higher educational attainment, better jobs, and a higher income level. Yet, it turns out that a high IQ is also associated with various mental and immunological diseases like depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, ADHD as well as allergies, asthma, and immune disorders.
Study of smart people and intelligence (IQ)
In people diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, IQ was positively correlated with worry. In other words, people who were more intelligent also worried more. Brain scans found that activity in sub-cortical white matter correlated with both anxiety and intelligence.
The Mini-Cog test.
A third test, known as the Mini-Cog, takes 2 to 4 minutes to administer and involves asking patients to recall three words after drawing a picture of a clock. If a patient shows no difficulties recalling the words, it is inferred that he or she does not have dementia.
Introduction: The five-word test (5WT) is a serial verbal memory test with semantic cuing. It is proposed to rapidly evaluate memory of aging people and has previously shown its sensitivity and its specificity in identifying patients with AD.
The five-minute cognitive test (FCT) was designed to capture deficits in five domains of cognitive abilities, including episodic memory, language fluency, time orientation, visuospatial function, and executive function.
Frontotemporal dementia
FTD is most often diagnosed in people between the ages of 45 and 65. This is different to Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia and dementia with Lewy bodies, which all become more likely as people get older.
Patient assessment tools:
The GPCOG is a screening tool for cognitive impairment designed for use in primary care and is available in multiple languages. Mini-Cog - The Mini-Cog is a 3-minute test consisting of a recall test for memory and a scored clock-drawing test.
Researchers found that chronic stress is a significant risk factor for dementia. Because this study looked at several previous studies, its findings are particularly convincing. A study of 1,700 seniors with an average age of 77 found a link between depression—which can both cause and be caused by stress—and dementia.
Treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias is typically most effective when started early in the disease process. This includes medications as well as some alternative therapies. Learn more about how to treat dementia.
“Dementia is irreversible when caused by degenerative disease or trauma, but might be reversible in some cases when caused by drugs, alcohol, hormone or vitamin imbalances, or depression,” explains The Cleveland Clinic. “The frequency of 'treatable' causes of dementia is believed to be about 20 percent.”