Being diagnosed with dementia does not mean that your brain has stopped working. It is usually a very minute part of the brain that is affected, in fact, so minute that only the most sophisticated PET scan technology can detect it. The rest of the brain is intact, and functioning. Thanks to neuroplasticity, new neurological pathways can be stimulated and grow, in spite of the fact that certain minute parts of the brain are affected by beta-amyloid plaques and tangles. If we have enough brain reserves and we keep on forming new neurological pathways, these could actually “override” the atrophied parts of the brain. It was found in autopsies that some people living absolutely functional lives, with no signs of dementia in their day-to-day living, had all the physiological signs of dementia in their brains. Again – atrophy of the brain does not necessarily mean that someone will become demented.
Brain reserves can be built throughout our lifetimes – the human brain functions optimally up to about the age of 96 years of age! After 96 you might expect to and learning new things is a bit more tricky! If we do not change the rhetoric around social constructs of ageing, being old, being retired, being unable to do things and we stop living a full life, we will see ourselves becoming that – old and decrepit. It does not have to be so. Changing your mind will affect the way that you age. Keeping your brain t and healthy will affect your mindful living.