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| Shamelessly stolen from Fred at Vern's Stories |
Today was another gig at the Home and Garden Show.
I am reading a book about Dementia. It claims that social interactions have a protective effect for Alzheimer's Disease. I think I had enough interactions to last me for the rest of the year.
I think of social-interactions the way some people think about taxes or washing dishes. They are necessary and if you don't like doing them then it is to your advantage to be able to do them well, and do be able to do them smoothly with minimum trauma and there are bonus style-points if nobody knows how much you would rather that you never had to do them.
Fortunately, two of my brothers are men of great charm and charisma. I ask "What would M do" or "What would R do" in social situations.
I expect that there will be two or three posts about my experiences pretending to be an extrovert.
Did the author say how he or she knows he or she isn't putting the cart before the horse: i.e., how do you know that it isn't simply the case that those behaviors of withdrawing from social interaction, etc., are just an early shadow of the disease? Because if they are in a decent amount of cases, then going out and socializing would just be a sign of continuing mental health rather than a cause of it.
ReplyDeleteOhio Copperhead
The author was a neurologist who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's (very early stages).
DeleteHe has been very clear that correlation is not causality.
For example, diminished hearing is associated with Alzheimer's but it is not clear if it is because diminished hearing reduces social interaction and CONTRIBUTES to decline or if hearing-loss is due to dying brain cells and is a comorbidity. Not a direct quote but you get a feel for his writing.
Joe, from the perspective of an 84 yo male who has moments of forgetting names for short periods of time and who has pretty profound deafness, I will say that everyone I know who is still upright and walking has similar problems to one degree or another. My deafness is the result of numerous loud noises of a percussive nature. Others have never been subjected to that kind of noise yet all have similar symptoms to a lesser degree as far as hearing goes. A few have descended into dementia to a greater degree at a younger age. From my perspective the two are not tied together except in a tenuous manner. However remember you cannot determine correlation with one data point.
ReplyDeleteOle Grump
So I'm a slightly younger grump that achieved profound deafness late in life via military service.
DeleteThe VA provided me with hearing aid starting about 15 years ago
I was unimpressed for many years about the quality of hearing I was achieving. About 6 months ago I got some nice oticon hearing aids that interface with my cell phone. My ability to understand phone calls when up about 2,000%
Just as important to me is that I can now stream music and hear things I never heard before in my life.
For all of you that are deaf or hearing impaired, A New Day has dawned in the treatment of hearing impairment.
Go. Embrace the new technology. It may well help avoid or delay the Alzheimer's crap.
Hmmm... I like that idea... LOL
ReplyDeleteHome and Garden Show = \/ ? \/ = avoid large crowds?
ReplyDeleteMaybe this show was in Amish country, but maybe not. Guessing the Amish avoid crowded trade shows in metro areas.
Joe - heed your own advice for Pete’s sake!
Get out of the cities. Jiminy Crisper - you could have been axe poled by the restless natives at that urban event!
Was the urban centered high congestion trade show “safe”?