As you may know, a seniors’ cognitive health needs to be good because it is something that they need to use on a daily basis. If a senior does not have a healthy sense of cognitive health then they are more likely to have issues that can escalate with time. According to the National Institute of Aging, a lot of things can affect their cognitive health including genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors.
Genetic Factors Affecting Cognitive Health
The genetic factors that can affect cognitive health are passed from parents to kids and cannot be controlled.
Environmental & Lifestyle Factors Affecting Cognitive Health
However, the environmental and lifestyle factors can be controlled. Some of these factors include medications, lack of exercise, poor diet, smoking, drinking, and more.
- Health problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression and others can also negatively affect your seniors’ cognitive health.
- Medications used to treat some of these disease have a harsher affect on older adults.
- Lack of exercise increases your risk for diabetes, heart disease, and other diseases that can also affect it. Your diet can cause you to get certain diseases.
- Smoking and alcohol is hard on your brain cells so, this plays a role in cognitive health.
- Sleep and social isolation are also proven to have negative affects.
- Loneliness is said to put you at increased risk for dementia.
Cognitive health is something we use daily. It is your memory so try to avoid the things that will harm it so your senior may get through day to day tasks easier.