Charles Alessi - Increase your brainability-and reduce your risk of dementia

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First Edition published in 2021

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2021932625

ISBN 9780198860341

eISBN 9780192604170

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198860341.001.0001

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We wrote this book to persuade readers to abandon negative and pessimistic beliefs about living longer because the science is clear that much of what happens to us is not the result of ageing, a normal biological process which cannot be slowed or reversed. Instead, science shows that many of the changes we have blamed on ageing are the result of other environmental factors which can be influenced. Furthermore, strong evidence from research has revealed many of these changes that were wrongly assumed to be the result of ageing can be prevented or delayed. We need to be positive, not negative, and being positive is also good for ones wellbeing.

People need this information, which in 2021 is of both vital and urgent importance, because the effects of lockdown have aggravated many of the problems that adversely affect physical and mental wellbeing.

This book was written for someone without a clinical qualification but many of our colleagues in our health systems are just as confused about ageing and dementia as members of the public and for them, as well as for the public we have provided references to the best science.

Our plan is to use this text as the platform for a major learning programme for people of all ages because, in the words of the Lancet which it used to launch the report of its Commission on Dementia, it is never too early and never too late to take action to increase the ability of the brain and reduce the risk of dementia.

Former Scientific Advisor to the Alzheimer Society of Canada, Professor Chambers research career has contributed to our understanding of many issues for people living with dementia. As a leader of the Canadian Study on Health and Aging, this was the first nation-wide Canadian population study of dementia prevalence, incidence, and caregiver issues by following the health trajectory of 10,000 older adult Canadians for 10 years. Professor Chambers co-led with the award-winning community wide program to prevent cardiovascular disease, a major cause of dementia. The Cardiovascular Health Awareness Program has received awards from the British Medical Journal, Canadian Institutes for Health Research, American Heart Association, and the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Professor Chambers work on evaluating the effectiveness of community screening for the signs of dementia has received international recognition. With his colleagues, he has created E-learning education resources to promote interprofessional education with physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and nurse practitioners in care facilities, the main location of people living with advanced dementia in our communities. For these groups, he has created greater access to library services, establishment of a system-wide seniors health knowledge network, as well as promotion of partnerships between academic and service delivery organizations such as care homes. Early in his career, Professor Chambers was an international scientific exchange fellow with the Research Unit on Neuropsychiatry: Epidemiology and Clinical Research, INSERM (medical research council), University of Montpellier, France. He has served on expert panels for Health Canada, US Institute of Medicine, WHO, and Pan American Health Organization. He has authored 18 books, 21 chapters in books, and 180 papers in refereed journals. Professor Chambers presently is Research Director of the Niagara Regional Campus, Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, McMaster University. He maintains appointments with the Department of Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact, McMaster University (Professor Emeritus); as well as with the Bruyre Research Institute., Faculty of Health at York University and IC/ES, Ontarios leading health and social data research organization. From 2013 to 2017, he was Scientific Advisor to the Alzheimer Society of Canada. He is a Fellow with the American College of Epidemiology, Honorary Fellow with the Faculty of Public Health of the United Kingdom and Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

Muir Gray entered the Public Health Service in Oxford in 1972 after qualifying in medicine in Glasgow. He is a consultant in public health.

He has been working with both NHS England and Public Health England with the aim of increasing value for both populations and individuals and published How To Get Better Value Healthcare in 2007. The means of doing this through systems and personalization is now called population healthcare and the aim of population healthcare is to maximize value and equity by focusing not on institutions, specialties, or technologies, but on populations defined by a common symptom such as breathlessness, condition such as type 1 or type 2 Diabetes or by a common characteristic, such as multiple morbidity.

Recently he has returned to his first public health missionpreventing the changes we assume are due to ageing and disease by getting the right attitude and fighting back against an environment that makes us inactive. His key books include Sod70! And, with Diana Moran, Sod Sitting, Get Moving! He is the Director of the Optimal Ageing Programme at Oxford and its mission is to lead cultural revolution to change the way we think about living longer and this is now a national network involving all the key agencies with the manifesto and resources available at www.livelongerbetter.uk