What is cognitive impairment?
Cognitive impairment is the progressive decline of one or more cognitive functions of the brain, understood as memory, language, attention, orientation, etc….This alteration or decline in cognitive functions may be due to a specific disease of the nervous system, a consequence of systemic diseases (or of other organs of our body) or may be part of physiological aging.
Cognitive impairment can be mild, when it does not influence the person’s daily tasks, or more advanced, which constitutes dementia, which is when the patient has lost one or more of his or her usual abilities.
What is neuroplasticity?
This is the capacity of our brain to modify the structure of neurons, the capacity to generate new neurons and the generation of new neuronal connections and neuronal networks. All this is reflected in an improvement and preservation of brain functions.
What neurological diseases can cause cognitive impairment?
The main neurological diseases associated with cognitive impairment are Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and its various atypical presentations, and vascular dementia.
These diseases can have a genetic origin, in a very low percentage and then usually have an early presentation and there is usually a family history in which there is a clear predisposition to cognitive impairment. However, in most cases, the cause of the onset of these pathologies is not due to a single factor, but many risk factors may come into play. For example, in Alzheimer’s disease, it is known that smoking, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, poor dietary habits, sedentary lifestyle, etc… can make the person much more prone to the disease. It is also known that chronic stress or lack of sleep can also lead to long-term cognitive impairment and therefore constitute a risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. There are even studies that have associated this disease with poor oral hygiene due to the continued presence of certain bacteria in the mouth and their passage into the bloodstream.
The fact that the risk factors for the disease are so varied and the fact that the disease occurs in the brain many years before the patient manifests symptoms makes it very difficult to design a drug that will actually be effective for the process or cure it.
How can we prevent cognitive decline?
This is perhaps the most important part of the article because with it we can learn the tools to make us resistant to this health problem that worries us so much. These tools are simple, but sometimes difficult to apply.
The first thing we must take care of is our diet. This must be the classic Mediterranean diet, the traditional diet of this country, which should not be lost. It should consist of basic elements such as fruit, vegetables and oily fish. Foods rich in saturated fats and processed or precooked foods should be avoided.
The diet should be accompanied by moderate, regular physical exercise, if possible outdoors. Physical exercise is a clear promoter of neuronal plasticity, that capacity of self-regeneration that our brain has. In addition, exercise produces a clear benefit in our mental health, reducing anxiety and preventing depressive symptoms. If it is practiced outdoors, with a good exposure to sunlight, it is a clear beneficial factor for sleep, as it will make us secrete more melatonin at night and our sleep will be of higher quality. In addition, it is known that a good quality of sleep makes the memory is better consolidated in our brain. Sleep also has the function of purifying our brain of toxic substances generated during the day. Therefore, healthy sleep is a protective factor for cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease.