Category: Dementia

Pet owners retain their cognitive abilities better with age than those without pets.

Having a pet may slow the rate of cognitive decline.

Older people who have pets such as a cat or a dog, especially for longer than five years, demonstrate better cognitive health.

This may put pet owners at a lower risk of developing dementia.

The benefit could be down to an increase in people’s physical activity as well as the stress-reducing effects of animals.

Dr Tiffany Braley, study co-author, said:

“Prior studies have suggested that the human-animal bond may have health benefits like decreasing blood pressure and stress.

Our results suggest pet ownership may also be protective against cognitive decline.”

The study included almost 1,400 older people, half of whom owned pets, with one-third owning pets over the long-term.

They were given a series of cognitive tests, including of their ability to remember words and do simple arithmetic.

The results revealed that pet owners retained their cognitive abilities better with age than people without pets.

The longer people had owned a pet, the greater the cognitive benefit.

Dr Braley said:

“As stress can negatively affect cognitive function, the potential stress-buffering effects of pet ownership could provide a plausible reason for our findings.

A companion animal can also increase physical activity, which could benefit cognitive health.

That said, more research is needed to confirm our results and identify underlying mechanisms for this association.”

Pets and mental health

Pets have been linked to all sorts of mental health benefits, both in the short- and long-term.

For example, ten minutes spent petting a cat or dog can significantly reduce stress.

And petting a dog for as little as three minutes increases levels of oxytocin, sometimes known as the ‘love hormone’.

In the longer term, people living with mental illness report a range of benefits from having pets:

1. People reported finding pets calming and supportive.
2. People felt their pets could tell when they were in trouble.
3. Pets provided a distraction from upsetting symptoms of mental illness.
4. Pets helped people stay active by providing a stimulus.
5. Pets helped people maintain a positive identity.
6. Owners felt their pets accepted them without judgement.

Having a dog as a childhood pet can even decrease the risk of developing schizophrenia later in life.

Emotional support animals can also be beneficial to people with mental health problems, another study finds.

Depression, anxiety and loneliness were reduced over a year in people who were given a cat or dog as a companion.

The study was presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 74th Annual Meeting (Shieu et al., 2022).

Elderly people low in this vitamin were more than twice as likely to develop dementia.

Low levels of Vitamin D are substantially associated with developing Alzheimer’s and dementia in older people.

An international team of scientists used data from 1,685 elderly Americans who were followed for around five years.

None had dementia problems at the start of the study, but after an average of five years, 171 had developed dementia, 102 of whom had Alzheimer’s disease.

The study found that, amongst those who developed dementia, those with low vitamin D levels were 53 percent more likely to develop the disease.

Amongst those who were severely deficient, the risk increased by 125 percent.

Similar increases in risk were seen for Alzheimer’s disease: low levels of vitamin D increased risk by 69 percent and severe deficiency by 122 percent.

Dr David Llewellyn of the University of Exeter Medical School, who led the study, said:

“We expected to find an association between low Vitamin D levels and the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, but the results were surprising — we actually found that the association was twice as strong as we anticipated.

Clinical trials are now needed to establish whether eating foods such as oily fish or taking vitamin D supplements can delay or even prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

We need to be cautious at this early stage and our latest results do not demonstrate that low vitamin D levels cause dementia.

That said, our findings are very encouraging, and even if a small number of people could benefit, this would have enormous public health implications given the devastating and costly nature of dementia.”

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The study was published in the journal Neurology (Littlejohns et al., 2014).

The personality changes came ahead of more obvious behavioural changes linked to Alzheimer’s.

Increases in neuroticism may help to predict the onset of Alzheimer’s.

Neuroticism is one of the five major personality traits and it involves a tendency towards worry and moodiness.

Neuroticism is characterised by negative thinking in a range of areas.

Neuroticism is strongly linked to anxiety, sadness, irritability and self-consciousness.

People who transition from mild cognitive impairment to full-blown Alzheimer’s are more likely to show personality changes.

Many people with mild cognitive impairment do not go on to develop dementia.

Both increased neuroticism and lower openness to experience predict the progression of the most common form of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease.

The conclusions come from a study that followed people for more than 7 years.

They were tested for personality, anxiety, depression and other symptoms.

The researchers found that personality changes typically came after memory had begun to worsen.

Increases in depression, anxiety and anger were strongly linked to the transition to dementia.

However, the personality changes came before typical behaviour changes — such as mood swings — were obvious.

The study’s authors write that Alzheimer’s disease is…

“…characterized by greater neuroticism and less openness; and coincide with subtle, clinically insignificant behavioral changes that qualitatively mirror and anticipate the clinically severe behavioral problems that often complicate dementia care.”

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The study was published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (Caselli et al., 2018).