What is the content of cognitive health education for the elderly?

Essentially, it is a set of practical knowledge to help the elderly delay cognitive decline, identify cognitive abnormalities as early as possible, and improve the quality of life in their later years. There are no too mysterious principles, but practical methods that can be directly applied to food, drink, housing and transportation. When we usually do missionary work in the community, the most common thing we talk about is the impact of lifestyle on cognition. For example, human cognitive function is like the running memory of a mobile phone. If you put less burden on the background (for example, don’t eat too much oil and too salty, stay up late, don’t stay at home for a long time), and take more initiative to save new content (such as learning short video clips, playing chess with old friends, and chatting together more), the speed at which the memory becomes full will naturally slow down. Last week, during the class we held on the street, an auntie asked whether we should buy more brain supplements. In fact, academic circles have different opinions here. Some small-scale studies believe that ginkgo leaf extract and Omega3 supplements have a certain protective effect on cognition, and there are also large-sample follow-up data showing that It shows that as long as healthy elderly people eat a balanced diet, taking additional supplements will not bring obvious benefits, but may increase the risk of bleeding. Therefore, we generally recommend giving priority to dietary supplements. Eating enough 100g of green leafy vegetables every day and two meals of deep-sea fish a week is much more reliable than spending a lot of money on health supplements.

In addition to daily protection, there is another aspect that many elderly people did not take seriously before, which is the identification of early signs of cognitive decline. Many elderly people and even their family members think that "it's normal for people to forget things as they get older." But in fact, there is a difference between normal forgetfulness and pathological decline: for example, you can't find the key you just left, or you can't remember the name of an acquaintance you just met. Most of these are normal memory aging, but if you can't even remember what you had with your children the day before, which community you live in, or even can't find your way home when you go out for a walk, this is not a normal "old fool" and you need to go to the neurology department for investigation as soon as possible. There used to be a 72-year-old Uncle Li in our area who always forgot to turn off the gas. His children thought he was careless at first. Later, after listening to our classes and taking him for a checkup, they found out that he had mild cognitive impairment. He received early intervention for more than two years. Now he can still buy and cook by himself. His condition is much better than that of the elderly who did not receive intervention at the same stage. We will also specifically tell the elderly how to prevent scams targeting cognitive decline. For example, products that claim to "can cure Alzheimer's disease with one injection" and "restore memory after three months of taking it" are all lies. If you really have a problem, you must go to a regular hospital and don't spend your pension money on random purchases of health care products.

Now when we do missionary work, we will deliberately invite family members to listen together. After all, the cognitive maintenance of the elderly is not a one-person affair. Many family members like to say "Why did you forget again" when they see the elderly forgetting things, which will undermine the elderly's self-confidence. Instead, they look through old photos with them, talk about old stories of being a soldier and going to the countryside when they were young, and encourage the elderly to go out and chat with their neighbors. Even letting the elderly be responsible for small things such as choosing vegetables every day and remembering the shopping list at home can help them maintain their cognitive functions. There are also many family members who prevent the elderly from going out for fear of falling. In fact, sitting at home and watching TV every day will actually cause cognitive decline much faster. Walking downstairs for half an hour and chatting with others for half an hour every day will have more obvious benefits for the brain than doing ten sets of cognitive questions at home. Oh, by the way, there is no unified opinion on the frequency of cognitive training. Some experts suggest that 15 minutes of training per day is enough. More than that will cause psychological burden on the elderly. There are also studies saying that active cognitive stimulation of more than 1 hour per week will have more obvious protective effects in the long run. We generally recommend that the elderly follow their own pace and learn new things if they are willing to learn. Don’t force it if you don’t want to. Happiness is the most important thing.