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Leesburg resident Gene Karr takes morning walks with friends and limits his cookie intake to one small package per grocery run. He’s a sound sleeper, an avid reader and socially engaged.
He’s also a caregiver for his wife of 54 years, Robin Karr, now living in a nursing home and in the late stages of Alzheimer’s disease.
In addition to tending to himself while caring for others, Karr, 82, is inadvertently doing what health care providers recommend to protect his own brain health: being social, exercising, eating right, getting mental stimulation, managing stress and getting good sleep.
“I wasn’t doing it thinking about my brain,” Karr says, “but more about my spirit.”
With Alzheimer’s disease and other causes of dementia on the rise, AARP Virginia is offering free workshops in June to share lifestyle tips aimed at helping people stay mentally sharp throughout their lives.
The workshops, both in-person and online during Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month, come as an estimated 6.9 million Americans age 65-plus have the disease and nearly 13 million are expected to by 2050. Of the current number, an estimated 164,000 live in Virginia, the Alzheimer’s Association says.
In addition, more than 11 million Americans — an estimated 342,000 in Virginia — care for someone with dementia, the Alzheimer’s Association says.
Such sobering statistics, medical professionals say, make boosting brain health all the more critical.
“It’s become more important in our daily lives [to ask]: What are we doing to make sure that our brain is sharp and healthy?” says JessiKa Eglin, AARP Virginia’s associate state director.
Prevention Vital as Cases Rise
Sarah Lock, senior vice president for policy and brain health for AARP, says prevention also is key because the U.S. health care and long-term care systems aren’t equipped to handle the expected influx of dementia cases. Available dementia medications primarily treat symptoms and only one slows Alzheimer’s disease progression. Moreover, Lock says, not everyone can take them, depending on the stage or cause of their dementia.
Healthy lifestyles also can help people with dementia live better, in the same way those with diabetes are advised to exercise and eat well, Lock says.
“Thinking about dementia as a cognitive disease that can be managed over time is a real possibility now,” Lock says, adding, “There are things you can do to reduce your risk and that improve quality of life.”
Heather M. Snyder, vice president of medical and scientific relations at the Alzheimer’s Association, says she’s excited about research to develop a routine clinical blood biomarker test. Such a test would seek to detect brain changes long before dementia symptoms surface, similar to the way a cholesterol test can warn of a greater risk for heart disease.
That’s important when changes to the brain can begin 20 or more years before dementia symptoms appear, Snyder says.
“There are things we can all be doing to really try to change that trajectory [and] delay that onset,” Snyder says.
Eglin says AARP workshop participants will learn and share tips, such as how they manage stress and get more and better sleep. In-person sessions will encourage exercise and stimulate the brain in a social setting with games, Hula Hoop twirling, crossword puzzles and other activities.
There are simple tools that are good for your brain health at any point of your life, Eglin says. She adds, “No one is too young or too old to focus on their brain health.”
For Karr, protecting his own brain health will provide more quality time with the woman he proposed to on the third date, raised three children with and long admired for her work as a speech therapist.
Her eyes still light up when he visits. “She’s still a sweet girl,” he says.
WHERE TO FIND FREE BRAIN HEALTH EVENTS
Fredericksburg: June 20, 9 to 11:30 a.m., “Day of Exercise” event promoting the brain health benefits of exercise at the Dorothy Hart Community Center, 408 Canal St.
Leesburg: June 13, 9 a.m. to noon, Brain Health workshop at Ida Lee Park Recreation Center, 60 Ida Lee Drive NW.
Richmond: June 6, 9 a.m. to noon, Brain Health workshop at Annie Giles Community Resource Center, 1400 Oliver Hill Way.
Virginia Beach: June 18, 9 a.m.to noon, Brain Health workshop at the Great Neck Pavilion, 2513 Shorehaven Drive.
Online: One-hour virtual “Brain Bites” workshops, cosponsored by the Alzheimer’s Association, will be held at 1 p.m. on June 6, June 13, June 20 and June 27 (all Thursdays).
Learn more and register for the programs at aarp.cvent.com/VAHealthyLiving.
Katherine Shaver has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, including 26 years at The Washington Post.
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