Being physically fit in middle age may lower the risk of dementia in old age, according to a study from The Annals of Internal Medicine. Researchers examined 19,458 healthy adults younger than age 65 who took a treadmill fitness test as part of a broader health examination between 1971 and 2009. Researchers then followed the subjects' Medicare ...

Elderly people with hearing loss may be at risk of developing cognitive deficits sooner than those whose hearing is intact, according to a new JAMA Internal Medicine study by researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine. After examining 1,984 older adults who participated in the Health ABC Study, Dr. Frank Lin, a hearing specialist and epidemiologist, ...

Brain cells may age similar to the way skin cells do, with one aging cell affecting many around it, a study from the British Journal Aging Cell suggests. Researchers found that aging mouse neurons produced several substances, including free radicals and other molecules that can promote inflammation and alter DNA, which can damage nearby cells, ...

Older adults who exercised and used computers reduced the risk of memory loss, whereas doing either activity by itself did not, according to a study from the May issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Participants who performed moderate physical activity and used a computer were 64 percent less likely to experience mild cognitive impairment compared ...

Nicotine may help improve memory loss in seniors, according to a study published in Neurology. Researchers found that seniors who had mild cognitive impairment could enhance their memories with nicotine patches. The patches also improved attention and mental processing. To read more about this study and its implications, click here for an ...

One-fifth of Medicare nursing home patients with advanced Alzheimer's or other dementias were sent to hospitals or other nursing homes for questionable reasons in their final months, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers from Harvard University and Dartmouth Medical School studied almost 475,000 ...

Sleep apnea may be associated with mental decline and dementia, according to a study from The Journal of the American Medical Association. The study, led by Dr. Kristine Yaffe, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, examined 298 physically and mentally healthy women, average age 82, from four geographic areas, ...

People in the South have more strokes and are more likely to die from them than people living elsewhere in the country, according to an article on The New York Times Web site. Researchers have also found that Southerners are more likely to have decreased cognitive ability over several years--specifically, problems with memory and orientation, ...

Drinking caffeinated coffee may help keep Alzheimer's disease from developing, according to an online study from the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease. The research, performed on mice whose DNA had been tweaked to contain a human Alzheimer's gene, revealed that the equivalent of four to five cups of caffeinated coffee every few days improved ...

The American Geriatrics Society's newest clinical tool, the AGS Guide to the Management of Psychotic Disorders and Neuropsychiatric Symptoms of Dementia in Older Adults, is now available on the AGS Web site, according to an AGS news release.  The guide gives health care professionals an overview of the risk factors, evaluation and ...