Dementia Prevention: Using Your Head to Save Your Brain

by Emily Clionsky, Mitchell Clionsky

Overview

Worried about memory loss and dementia risk? This new book will show you easy-to-follow steps to keep your brain healthy.

Emily Clionsky, MD, and Mitchell Clionsky, PhD, are a physician and neuropsychologist couple who have cared for their own parents with dementia, created a test used by doctors to measure cognitive function, and treated more than 25,000 patients with cognitive impairment. In Dementia Prevention, they combine the most current scientific findings about Alzheimer's disease and other dementias with their experience to present a practical guide that empowers you to improve your brain's future.

This book skips the fads, the unsupported claims of advertised products, and fringe theories. Instead, the authors guide you through a science-based tour of dementia, including how your brain works and how its function is affected by everything from blood circulation and blood pressure to sugar levels, medications, vision, and hearing. You will learn how your activity level, weight, habits, mental outlook, and social engagement may affect your likelihood of developing dementia.

Dementia Prevention provides a dementia risk checklist to better understand your personal risk profile to help you on your journey. The authors' training and experience as behavioral scientists will help you set better goals, identify roadblocks to success, and overcome these obstacles. Forgetfulness and confusion are not an inevitable part of growing older—you can make changes to keep your brain working well into your 70s and beyond. From how you breathe while you sleep to what you do socially and physically every day, Dementia Prevention will give you practical—and sometimes surprising—methods for you to protect your brain.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781421446257
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	04/04/2023
Series:	A Johns Hopkins Press Health Book
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.64(d)

About the Author

Emily Clionsky, MD (SPRINGFIELD, MA), is an internal medicine doctor with 25 years of experience and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. She has treated thousands of patients with memory loss at her private practice.

Mitchell Clionsky, PhD (SPRINGFIELD, MA), is a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist with 45 years of experience evaluating and treating patients with cognitive impairment, dementia, ADHD, and traumatic brain injury.

Table of Contents

Introduction: An Ounce of Prevention
Section 1: Nature and Origin of Dementia
1. What is Dementia?
2. Normal Cognitive Aging
Section 2: Dementia Risk Model
3. Genetics and Early Life Factors
4. Midlife Medical Conditions Impacting Dementia Risk
5. Lifestyle Factors of Smoking, Diet and Exercise
6. Breathing, Sleeping, Breathing While Sleeping
7. Metabolic and Vitamin Deficiencies
8. Alcohol, Drugs, and Medications
9. Sensory and Emotional Factors That Amplify Dementia Risk
10. Putting It All Together in an Interactive Dementia Risk Model
Section 3: Where Do You Stand and What You Can Do About It
11. Take the Test: Your Dementia Prevention Checklist
12. Everybody Wants to Feel Better, But Nobody Wants to Change
13. Use Your Brain to Save Your Brain
14. Applying the Change Formula to Your Life
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

Quincy Samus

With Dementia Prevention, the authors deliver an exceptional review of the problem, the state of science and clinical practice, and how the knowledge, tools, and evidence-based health insights we have available to us now can be harnessed to reduce risk and help individuals feel more control and have an opportunity to live healthier lives right now.

Michelle Reshef

This is an excellent book discussing the complexity of dementia. Reading this book will provide you with an in-depth understanding and knowledge of dementia, as well as provide you with practical tools that will empower you to create your very own tailor-made prevention plan that is easy to follow and engaging. The book is easy to read, tells real-life stories that you can relate to and there is no need for previous knowledge. It takes you on a journey to understand the complexity of the disease and why it is so hard to find a cure. Prevention is the only option we have and this book is providing the why and the how. This book is highly recommended for both professionals and laymen who would like to learn about dementia prevention.

From the Publisher

This is an excellent book discussing the complexity of dementia. Reading this book will provide you with an in-depth understanding and knowledge of dementia, as well as provide you with practical tools that will empower you to create your very own tailor-made prevention plan that is easy to follow and engaging. The book is easy to read, tells real-life stories that you can relate to and there is no need for previous knowledge. It takes you on a journey to understand the complexity of the disease and why it is so hard to find a cure. Prevention is the only option we have and this book is providing the why and the how. This book is highly recommended for both professionals and laymen who would like to learn about dementia prevention.
—Michelle Reshef, Dementia Prevention UK

With Dementia Prevention, the authors deliver an exceptional review of the problem, the state of science and clinical practice, and how the knowledge, tools, and evidence-based health insights we have available to us now can be harnessed to reduce risk and help individuals feel more control and have an opportunity to live healthier lives right now.
—Quincy Samus, PhD, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Great read! This book helped me better understand the massive problem our society has with dementia. The best part of the book is all the practical advice on reducing my own personal risk for developing dementia. Chapter 11's Dementia Prevention Checklist is a game changer!
—Steve Bower, Vice President, Lincare; President, CPAP Supply USA

This book sounds the clarion call for taking action to reduce our risk of developing dementia. In vivid and easy-to-digest language, the Clionskys provide well-calibrated guidance on how to best improve our odds of staying cognitively sharp.
—Jimmy Potash, MD, Johns Hopkins Medicine

Dementia Prevention summarizes decades of research and clinical experience into a format that is readable and relatable. For anyone concerned about their own cognitive health or that of a loved one, Dementia Prevention will be an excellent resource. I recommend this book highly to my patients and their families.
—Jay Levin, MD, Board Certified Neurologist, Mass General Brigham - Cooley Dickinson Hospital

This well-researched, clearly written, actionable guide to preventing dementia is a welcome antidote to the hopelessness that surrounds this condition. What's more, this book is full of advice about what people can do to maintain brain health—something of enormous concern to our aging population—and a valuable addition to the literature on this important topic.
—Judith Graham, Navigating Aging columnist, Kaiser Health News

A book whose time has come! Finally, a highly readable, up to date and hopeful book that summarizes what we now know about dementia and outlines the effective, and practical things we can do to combat this complex disorder. Senior Living professionals will want to refer this book to their staff, residents and family members.
—Paul Klaassen, Founder, Sunrise Senior Living

Steve Bower

Great read! This book helped me better understand the massive problem our society has with dementia. The best part of the book is all the practical advice on reducing my own personal risk for developing dementia. Chapter 11's Dementia Prevention Checklist is a game changer!

Jimmy Potash

This book sounds the clarion call for taking action to reduce our risk of developing dementia. In vivid and easy-to-digest language, the Clionskys provide well-calibrated guidance on how to best improve our odds of staying cognitively sharp.