Dementia is preventable
Unfortunately, this is completely untrue. However, it’s worth mentioning that some factors could reduce the risk of some types of dementia. For example, the Lancet Commission’s 2020 report on dementia prevention, intervention, and care lists 12 factors that could increase the risk of dementia: less education, hypertension, smoking, hearing impairment, depression, obesity, sedentary life, diabetes, low levels of social contact, alcohol consumption, and air pollution.
Working on changing some of these factors might have a positive impact on your health and even help reduce the risk of dementia.
Vitamins and supplements might prevent dementia
Regarding what we’ve discussed above, this is, again, false. Up to this date, there hasn’t been any strong evidence that vitamin and mineral supplements might reduce the risk of dementia. In fact, back in 2018, the Cochrane Library studied the issue with a thorough analysis that included data from over 83,000 participants from 28 other studies.
They concluded that there wasn’t any evidence to show that vitamin and mineral supplementation might have a meaningful effect on cognitive decline or dementia.
People with dementia are automatically more aggressive
In certain situations, people with dementia might find that it’s increasingly harder to understand the world around them (not that cognitively healthy adults have it any better, either). For understandable reasons, the confusion might become extremely frustrating, and some individuals might even respond to emotions in an angry fashion. But this doesn’t make it a rule for everyone. In fact, according to a study conducted on 215 people with dementia, 41% of them developed aggressive behavior throughout the 2-year study.
And when scientists looked at the list of factors that increased the risk of developing aggressive behavior, they discovered that physical pain and a low-quality relationship between the patients and their caregivers led to an increasingly aggressive attitude.
If you’re curious to read more about dementia, here’s what you need to read: 7 Subtle Signs Your Spouse Has Dementia
