http://ozarkspub.vo.llnwd.net/o37/KSMU/audio/mp3/thescience_6306.mp3
77-year-old Owen Case is sitting in his favorite chair, a magazine resting on his crossed leg. Next to him is a well-stocked bookshelf, with novels by Dan Brown and John Grisham, as well as history books and several magazines.
His tattered blue jeans and old, gray t-shirt give an air of humility to this Korean War veteran and retired educator. But his brain is wealthy with knowledge: four degrees, including a Ph.D., and random tidbits of information from reading constantly.
Case: “Fiction, non-fiction, history, psychology, theology, philosophy, science, almost anything interests me. I’m learning where the jobs are going to be where the jobs are right now.”Moore: “What are you reading today? Is this The Economist? Newsweek?”Case: “TIME.”Moore: “Oh, TIME.”
Case is a widower; he lives in the Gardens Assisted Living facility in Springfield. He says as he inches closer to 80, he notices his memory getting a little rusty from time to time. For example, he’ll forget he’s already read a certain magazine until he gets well into the article and it hits him.
But experts say without his education and constant activity, his memory would probably be even worse. Today, we’re looking at the science behind that phenomenon.
“There are more than 70 different diseases and disorders that can cause dementia,” says Mary Newman, an associate professor of psychology at MSU.
She says everyone loses brain cells as they age. But most people are able to keep the brain connections so the message can keep traveling through the brain’s circuitry.
In the brain of someone with Alzheimer’s, and some other forms of dementia, the connection gets blocked. The culprits? Two perpetrators known as "plaques" and "tangles."
“Tangles are little pieces of brain cells that are dying or dead, and they get twisted around and they interfere with cell function,” said Newman.
“Plaques are sticky substances that also keep the brain cells from functioning normally,” she said.
Everyone has plaques in tangles in the brain. But Newman says there are many more in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s Disease.
“But if you keep intellectually active, and this is from early life on, for some reason, the connections are better and you’re able to maintain cognition longer. And, you’re also able to use alternative strategies for things you can’t remember,” Newman says.
What might be surprising to many is that as good as intellectual activity is—crosswords, reading, learning something new—physical activity is vital to preserving memory, too.
“It turns out that keeping physically active gives you a slightly greater advantage. You need both, but the physical activity is causing you to oxygenate the brain and provide more glucose to the brain,” Newman said.
If that’s the case, 88-year-old Leona Richerson is doing exactly what she should be: she attends an aerobics class six days a week.
“Oh, we throw our arms, you know, and we kick our legs, and we just do all kinds of things like that,” she says.
She also plays the piano, attends lectures, writes letters, and reads newspapers and The Bible.
Rob Hulstra of the Alzheimer’s Association says one more thing people should do to keep the brain from losing its connections is step outside your box: if you’ve worked as an accountant all your life, go buy a karaoke machine. Pick up a paintbrush, start a butterfly collection, take dance lessons, find a pen-pal—something to stimulate an entirely new area of your brain.
Hulstra says he met one man who did just that.
“[He was] 73 years old, and he came up and thanked me in Mandarin Chinese. He had no plans of going to China at any time, but said ‘I wanted to learn a language that was so different from French, or Italian, or Spanish,’” Hulstra said.
Owen Case, the veteran who’s probably reading away this very moment, has just taken up a new interest: investing in the stock market.
“I’m very interested in economics and accounting, which I don’t have a strong background in, but I’m trying to learn,” he said.
In a 2008 study, Harvard University’s School of Public Health found that seniors who have an active social life may also have a slower rate of memory loss.
Owen Case must’ve read about that study too: he’s joined a social group for retired professors.
Our Sense of Community Series on Aging is available on our website: www.ksmu.org. I’m Jennifer Moore.