What are the characteristics of cognitive health in older adults that are not included?

People often assume that "there is no memory loss at all, it is normal to be unable to learn new things, a drastic change in temperament is an old fool, and it is safer to go out less and socialize less." These statements are not characteristics of the cognitive health of the elderly. They are all deep-rooted misunderstandings among the public.

Don't mention it, we encountered a typical example last week. Aunt Li, 67, couldn't find freshly pickled garlic at home and was so anxious that she was sweating. Her daughter searched online and thought it was a sign of Alzheimer's disease, so she quickly pulled her over for a full set of screenings. As a result, all cognitive scores were within the healthy range, which shocked both mother and daughter. In fact, the hippocampus of our brain is like a hard drive that has been used for decades. It has been erased and written many times. It is normal to occasionally save small unimportant files and not be able to find them. As long as we don't ask "what day is it today" three or four times a day, or say that we haven't eaten just after eating, such memory errors that affect our lives. Occasionally forgetting trivial things is not a problem at all. If we really require the elderly to have a good memory, it is an unreasonable requirement that violates physiological laws. Oh, by the way, some scholars now suggest that as long as memory loss occurs, cognitive training should be done in advance. This view does have some reference, but the current consensus in the industry is that as long as it does not affect normal life, it is a normal manifestation of cognitive health, and there is no need to be overly anxious.

Many people also think that "it is normal for people's brains to be unable to move when they are old, and they cannot learn new things." This also means that they regard cognitive decline as normal aging. Last month, our community held a smartphone training class, and 78-year-old Uncle Wang took three classes. Not only was he able to make videos on WeChat, but he was also able to cut a short video of himself growing flowers and post it on WeChat Moments. He was so good at it. Even if cognitively healthy elderly people are slower at learning new things, they can always learn them as long as they are willing to learn. If they suddenly cannot even open the microwave oven they have used for more than ten years, or are extremely repellent to all new things and are unwilling to touch them, that is an early warning sign of cognitive impairment, and it is not a "normal sign of old age."

As for the statement that "people will definitely become stubborn and weird as they get older", it even regards pathological manifestations as normal characteristics. When an old man’s family brought him here last year, they said that he used to have a very easy-going personality. In the past six months, he always suspected that the nanny at home was stealing his pension, and always said that someone was watching him outside the window. At first, the family thought it was an "old child throwing a tantrum", but the screening revealed that he had mild cognitive impairment. Cognitively healthy elderly people may become more nostalgic and act more securely as they get older, but they will never change their temperament drastically for no reason, let alone abnormal symptoms such as hallucinations and delusions. If an elderly person in your family suddenly experiences such a situation, don't take it seriously, and getting screened quickly is better than anything else.

There are also many children who feel that the elderly are safest if they stay at home. If they go out less and use their brains less, they will not get tired. In fact, cognitively healthy elderly people have social needs. They are willing to go downstairs to play chess with their old friends, dance square dances, or sign up for a calligraphy class at a community college for the elderly. On the contrary, the elderly who stay at home for a long time and refuse all social interactions have a rate of cognitive decline that is more than twice that of elderly people who often participate in social activities. "It is safer to participate less in social activities" is not only not a characteristic of cognitive health, but also a wrong approach to accelerate cognitive decline.