Mary Jordan - Essential Guide to Avoiding Dementia

Mary Jordan writes that dementia is the diagnosis that everyone dreads and recent survey data support this view, that people in middle age and older worry about dementia more than any other condition, including cancer. And this fear coincides with, and is probably influenced by, an anticipated steep trajectory in the number of people living with dementia in the years to come. The outcome will be a doubling of the number in the United Kingdom by 2051, while globally the number will more than treble.

And what causes such extreme worry is that this degenerative and incurable politically correct disease cuts a swathe across society, never respecting power or privilege. Consequently, it is accompanied by a sense, if not a conviction, that nothing can be done to either prevent or reduce the risk of succumbing to a condition that not only results in profound intellectual disability but eventually in the loss of self and of awareness, which can mean that even if your world is supportive, safe and comforting it may be experienced as mysterious, threatening and a source of intolerable insecurity.

In the absence of any realistic hope of a cure, hundreds of thousands of baby-boomers are facing the spectre of advanced dementia. As a result Mary Jordans book is a timely must read. Embracing dementia awareness , health promotion and risk reduction, this thoughtful and well-written book may just help some avoid the devastating diagnosis of dementia.

Through chapters that are comprehensive, grounded in evidence but accessible to the interested, as well as specialists and practitioners in dementia care, the author explores the myriad of opinions, theories and viewpoints concerning the risks and causes of dementia, some of which surface in the media as sensational claims with only the smallest grain of truth behind them. But then the question is not so much why the media engage in such inaccurate sensationalism as why is it thought that people will be interested in such stories; it is because the fear of dementia is becoming ingrained in the psyche of people in high-income countries across the world.

Surveying the landscape to seek out vulnerability and the possibility of risk-reduction, Mary Jordan considers the potential contribution of physical and mental health, lifestyle, trauma, personality and nutrition, as well as the role of genetics. Her explanations are brought to life by brief case vignettes, while key learning points at the end of each chapter make clear the evidence and arguments.

Throughout, Mary Jordans message is that we must look at the research : because we do not yet know what triggers the cellular diseases that account for most dementias and so cannot truthfully be sure how to avoid developing, for example, Alzheimers disease, this book is an honest account of how we can lower the odds in the light of current medical knowledge and experience.