What to do if you have a family history of dementia after age 65
Last Updated: Dec 2 2024
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Having a family history of dementia does not mean that you will automatically develop dementia later in life.
However, there are things you need to do to help protect yourself.
This article explains what to do for your own health if your parent or sibling had or currently has dementia.
Understand what drives family patterns
As we discussed in this article on figuring out your starting risk of dementia (i.e. “baseline risk”), there are two ways family history impacts your future risk for disease.
#1 FAMILY HABITS
For most of us with a family history of dementia, it is our shared habits, not our shared genetics, that are responsible for dementia.
As we grow up, we tend to learn and mimic lifestyle habits from those around us.
For example, if our parents weren’t big on cooking we likely didn’t learn how to cook ourselves, making it less likely that we’ll be eager to cook when we leave home.
As well, depending on where we live we might have limited access to education, fresh food, and safe environments, all of which would normally protect us from developing dementia later in life, but are not available to us or our families through no fault of our own.
This means that while dementia can “run” in families, it is not always an inevitable part of our genes. It is instead related to our political environment and lifestyle habits.
These kinds of family patterns can be changed, with about 45% of dementia in the world being related to lifestyle and environment.
Through a combination of socioeconomic advocacy and personal lifestyle choices, it is possible to avoid the preventable diseases that our parents suffered from.
The environment in which we live and the habits we pick up from our parents accounts for most of the risk from our family history of dementia - which are often in our power to change.
#2 GENETICS
In a minority of cases, there are some genes that we can inherit from our parents that do truly increase our risk of dementia.
This includes the APOE4 gene, which accounts for about 7% of dementia cases in the world (Lancet, 2017).
If you have one APOE e4 allele, your lifetime risk of dementia goes up to about 30%.
Many people with the APOE4 allele do not ever develop disease.
Even more rarely, the APP, PSEN1, and PSEN2 genes are responsible for 1% of dementia.
Certain genes can lead to the build-up of bad proteins in the brain, resulting in dementia symptoms.
Identify your family triggers
While everyone is different, we can all learn lessons from those around us.
Download the family history handout and consider which of the actions known to predispose to dementia your parent or sibling might have struggled with.
This can help you figure out which things you need to make sure that you avoid to lower your personal risk of dementia.
We can learn from the lives of our loved ones what dementia risk factors our family might be particularly prone to.
5 big lifestyle targets
After considering your family history as a roadmap of what to do - and not do - there are also five big areas that have a particularly big impact on your dementia risk.
These 5 things are more prescriptive than other recommendations at Aldora, but for those worried about dementia risk, they can help you take control of the things you have power over.
5 big dementia prevention areas:
Do not drink more than 2 alcoholic drinks a week
Do not partake in activities that lead to significant head trauma (such as contact sports); wear a helmet; and avoid falls
Get sleep apnea treated early by wearing CPAP if you need it
Manage your heart-health with diet and exercise, or medications (including for high blood pressure, diabetes, smoking, weight, and cholesterol)
Wear hearing aids all the time, if you need them.
Avoid alcohol, head injury, heart disease, sleep apnea, and unmanaged hearing loss to reduce your risk of dementia.
What about medications?
New medications are on the horizon that can remove the beta-amyloid and tau that build up in the brain, causing symptoms of dementia.
People with the APOE4 gene tend to benefit the same or better than those without the genetic link, however the risks are higher for side effects (including bleeding).
These medications are not yet approved for use in Canada.
Once they are, we will notify you of new articles that help guide you through your decision making
New injectable drugs for dementia prevention and treatment are on the horizon. We'll notify you when they are available in Canada.
In Closing:
Most people with a family history of dementia can overcome their family past through lifestyle changes
First, avoid the lifestyle triggers that might have contributed to your family member’s disease
Second, avoid these 5 big risk factors: alcohol, head trauma, sleep apnea, heart-disease, and hearing loss.
We’ll notify you when new medications become available
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