What is the content of cognitive health education for the elderly?

To put it bluntly, the current cognitive health education for the elderly is centered around the three cores of "helping the elderly and their families detect cognitive abnormalities early, learn to scientifically delay decline, and master correct care methods." It is not a theory floating in the sky, but practical content that can be directly used.

When I was doing publicity work in a community a while ago, I met the 70-year-old Aunt Zhang, who was a typical example. She always said that "it's normal for people to become confused as they get older." She couldn't even remember the names of the antihypertensive drugs she often took, and she didn't take it seriously when she asked when the meal would be served just after eating. The first thing we clarified was this misunderstanding. Of course, it must be said here that there is currently no fully unified standard in the academic community for "the boundary between normal aging forgetfulness and pathological precursors." Some studies believe that It is a normal sign of aging for elderly people over 80 years old to occasionally forget things and turn around to find their keys. Follow-up data from the neurology department of a tertiary hospital shows that as long as "forgetting after saying something, asking the same question repeatedly, or unable to remember the names of acquaintances" occurs more than three times a month, it is necessary to do cognitive screening. We usually tell everyone both views, so that everyone can judge based on their own situation. Don't scare yourself, but don't take it seriously.

After figuring out how to distinguish abnormal signals, what everyone is most concerned about is definitely how to prevent and slow down the rate of cognitive decline. We will not talk about complicated cognitive training methods in this part. They are all small skills embedded in daily life. For example, deliberately not using a calculator to calculate the food cost when buying groceries, recalling what the TV series you watched yesterday when you have nothing to do at home, playing chess with an old friend, learning to sing a new opera, or even learning to cook a new dish from a short video are all effective cognitive exercises. There used to be a 72-year-old Grandpa Li in our community. He was diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment through screening last year. After returning home, he insisted on going to the vegetable market with his wife every day to settle accounts. He also followed our elderly interest class to learn how to shoot short videos and write scripts. Six months later, he rechecked the cognitive scale and found that his score had increased by 12 points. Even his daughter praised him for having a much better memory recently and calculating money for groceries faster than young people.

Many people think that cognitive health education is only for the elderly. In fact, every time we give a lecture, at least half of the time is reserved for family members. After all, family members spend most of their time with the elderly, so this part of the content is more practical. For example, if an elderly person in your family has already experienced cognitive decline, don't always poke at the elderly person and say, "Why did you forget it again?" "I told you 800 times." This kind of accusation is not only useless, but will also make the elderly person feel frustrated and accelerate cognitive decline. ； If the old man has a misidentification, such as clamoring to find his deceased wife, don't directly say, "He left a long time ago, don't you remember?", follow his words and say, "Auntie went out to buy groceries and will be back in a while. How about I watch TV with you first?" On the contrary, it can stabilize the old man's mood and is good for his cognitive state. Oh, yes, we will also specifically talk about the relationship between chronic diseases and cognition. Many elderly people think that as long as they don’t feel dizzy or feel dizzy, they don’t need to take medicine for high blood pressure and diabetes. In fact, if these chronic diseases are not well controlled, they will slowly damage the cerebral blood vessels, which is equivalent to quietly "accelerating" cognitive decline. This is a point we have to emphasize repeatedly every time.

Anyway, after having been promoting cognitive health for so long, our feeling is that the content does not need to be too profound and can be understood and used by the elderly and their families to be truly useful.