Simple practices can help make the best of it

[00:00:00] Host Amber Smith: Here's some expert advice from Dr. Sharon Brangman, chief of geriatrics at Upstate Medical University. What can a person do if they have mild cognitive impairment?

[00:00:12] Sharon Brangman, MD: We have a lot of non-pharmacological approaches, but as a society, we always want a pill. So we don't want to hear things unless there's a pill. But there's a lot you could do for brain health, and as I mentioned, some people with MCI, it gets better.

There are a number of things that we encourage people to do. The No. 1 is exercise. Exercise is probably better than any prescription I could write. And we try to tell people that they need about 150 minutes a week of good activity. And that could be walking. You don't have to run a marathon. It could be swimming. I recommend that my patients figure out a way to take a walk for a half an hour a day. You could break it up into 15 minutes, twice a day. But it's very important that we figure out a way to incorporate exercise into our life, just like we brush our teeth every day.

The other thing you want to do is make sure you get a good night's sleep, because when we are sleeping well, that's when our brain cleans up all these little abnormal particles that build up during the day. And research shows that when we're in deep sleep, that's when our brain cleans up all of these little particles. So it's important to get a good night's sleep.

The other thing that people usually don't like to hear too much is that alcohol really isn't good for your brain. You know, there were a lot of studies -- many of them were supported by the alcohol industry -- that said red wine was good for your brain. And we're starting to understand that alcohol is actually a toxin to nerves, and there is really no safe level of alcohol for our bodies in general and for our brains. So I try to encourage patients to keep alcohol use to a minimum and to stay away from the very high alcohol content beverages if they have to have a drink. But maybe just save it for special occasions.

The other thing is to not smoke, to control your blood pressure. If you have diabetes, control diabetes, and to eat a heart healthy diet. Any diet that helps your heart stay healthy helps your brain stay healthy because it's the same blood vessels that we're working on. And what they call the Mediterranean diet, minus the wine, is probably one of the healthiest diets you can have.

And then the other piece that's important is being socially engaged. If you have connections with people around you, if you volunteer in your community, if you have friends that you meet with regularly, it's important that you maintain social connections. And we're just coming out of a period where everybody was very isolated, and that took its toll on a lot of people and their brain power.

And then the final thing that's important is to make sure that you can hear well and that you can see well. Because if you don't get good sensory input from your ears and your eyes, then your brain has less to work with. And studies show that that can be a risk factor for developing dementia. And a lot of people don't want to wear hearing aids or they deny that they have a hearing problem. It's very important to get your hearing checked and have your vision checked and to get them corrected if needed.

The majority of people with mild cognitive impairment never advance into dementia. About 80 to 85% may just have this aggravation where they just feel like they're not quite up to speed in terms of their brain power, but it doesn't get any worse, and sometimes it gets better over time.

[00:04:12] Host Amber Smith: You've been listening to chief of geriatrics, Dr. Sharon Brangman from Upstate Medical University.