Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sa.
Welcome to Vital Signs. I'm Jen Goday, your fearless host, and we are here to protect our greatest asset, our health. Today we're talking about one of the biggest health challenges of our time. Brain health, dementia, and Alzheimer's disease. Most people think that dementia is something that just happens when you get old. Newsflash, it's not. Your brain doesn't Suddenly break at 75 or 80 or 82. The damage often starts decades earlier. It's quiet, it's invisible. It's when we still feel fine. And many of the biggest threats to your brain are hiding in plain sight. Poor sleep, chronic stress, blood sugar instability, social isolation, inflammation, sedentary living, and a lack of real cognitive stimulation.
So if you think brain health only matters when memory loss starts, you're already too late to the conversation.
Joining me today is Eric Collette, founder and CEO of A Mind for All Seasons. For more than two decades, Eric has worked in dementia care, cognitive health, brain health interventions, leadership strategies, and long term care innovation. He is a nationally recognized speaker, consultant, and brain health expert, a licensed residential care administrator and an educator who's taught at the College of Western Idaho and Boise State University.
Eric, welcome to the show.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Thanks, Jen. I'm pleased to be here.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: Listen, I really want to sort of do some myth busting today, and I think I led with the myth that everyone believes dementia is just normal aging.
What are we getting wrong about this?
[00:02:09] Speaker B: I love that you start with that point, Jen, because people confuse what is common with normal all the time when it comes to health, and this is even beyond dementia. But specifically when it comes to dementia, what people need to understand is that diseases like Alzheimer's actually start pathologically 10 to 20 years before symptoms show up, at least cognitive symptoms. And most of the symptoms that get measured are those that are measured with a cognitive test.
Well, that has to do with our outputs. So think about the brain as having three kind of different levels. Level one would be inputs and dealing with those inputs. And level two is kind of all the processing and the consolidation that that's going on internally when those inputs come in and then we have to deal with them. Level three is the outputs. And most of the testing that gets done is in the realm of the outputs. But we know that although cognitive symptoms might not show up for a long time, there are symptoms related to the inputs that show up very early.
So to give you a quick list of those kinds of things that actually are measurable, sensory deficits are at the top of the list. Things like loss of smell that's an early symptom of both Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease. And it can show up many years or decades before cognitive symptoms would manifest themselves. Any sort of sensory deficit can be a dementia risk factor and a sign early on that something's not going quite right. So we can be aware of that. There are also things that show up in blood tests, nutrient deficiencies, hormonal problems, chronic inflammation, and inflammatory markers that are persistently elevated. Those kinds of things happen for a long time before the brain starts to deteriorate.
The problem that people face is that we've all grown up in this sick care system, which breeds the type of thinking that leads us to say, well, we live our lives, we do the very best that we can, and if something starts to fall apart and, well, then we go see the doctor. And that works really well. If you have acute illness or infection, if you get in a car accident, you better believe it. You've got to get to the emergency department and get put back together. If you got bacterial pneumonia, yeah, that might come out of the blue and you might need a rapid intervention. But when it comes to chronic diseases, the kinds of things that are at the top list of the killers for people, often people are living for decades with chronic disease and it's wrecking the end of their lives.
People might be living longer, but they don't have a health span that matches. So I think fundamentally, one of the things that needs to happen for all of us is a shift from very reactive thinking toward being proactive, because the very best way to treat Alzheimer's disease is to never get it in the first place.
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Oh, I couldn't agree with you anymore. And so we've talked about this, and I just want to highlight a couple of things that you said, folks, if you missed it, dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, all of these disease processes often start 10, 20 years before any of the cognitive decline.
I want to move into the next question, and that's what are everyday habits that are quietly accelerating that decline? Maybe I have a sensory deficit, Maybe I've noticed my sense of smell starting to go away or what have you. I'm having one of these early signs, or what is it that I can do? Like what everyday habits? Can I change that? Can that? What is accelerating it? And then what can I do to stop that in its track?
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Great, great question.
So, for example, take hearing loss. If we're going to pick a sensory deficit, it's well researched that if you treat hearing loss, which just means going to a Qualified audiologist, getting fitted for hearing aids, making sure that they're working correctly. If you do that, there's research showing that it results in a 48% risk reduction for cognitive decline.
Well, that's huge. Why would we not do that? When it comes to Alzheimer's disease specifically, if you get cataract surgery, there's a 43% risk reduction in Alzheimer's disease.
So we need to do things that both improve our sensory experience and even stimulate them more. They. There's also a long list of lifestyle factors that we can be paying attention to. Things like brain training, which is not Sudoku or crosswords. You just get better at Sudoku and crosswords. If you do that, brain training means you have new cognitive experiences. You're stimulating the brain in such a way that it's never dealt with that thing before and it has to make new connections. Is that part of your life? If not, well, it could be. What about physical activity?
Staying physically active is one of the very best and best research things that we could possibly do for our brain. The brain's got to have a good blood supply if it's going to function well. And when you're physically active, you're also stimulating more of a growth hormone for brain cells.
Our diet matters. Chronically elevated blood sugar is at the root of a ton of major killers out there. And Alzheimer's disease sometimes gets nicknamed diabetes of the brain or type 3 diabetes. So if you've got this chronically persistent elevated blood sug and insulin, you're going to be in trouble. And that means let's ditch ultra processed food, let's eat real food, let's manage our sugars more thoughtfully.
Sleep is critical for the brain. People say, I'll, I'll sleep when I'm dead, or sleep is for the week. And I think, yeah, you say, I'll sleep when I'm dead, you're going to get there a little bit faster because sleep is when the brain takes out the trash. And if you're not cycling through the stages of sleep consistently every night, then the trash is piling up. You're going to have more of the tangles and plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease.
So there's more that we could add.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: But yeah, yeah, you just mentioned a couple of really easy interventions that we take no matter what age we are. We can fuel our body, we can manage blood sugar, we can move our body. Physical activity doesn't have to be in the gym, folks, like, get moving.
We can be sleeping so that we get the recovery. We need. But most important, I think, is the brain training. So I would like to ask a little bit of a deeper question than that because also, I mean, I've read that loneliness, isolation can, can lead to rapid accelerate or more accelerated loss, loss of function. So when we're thinking about that, that lack of cognitive stimulation, like, and you talked about brain training, give me some concrete examples about what that might look like because you've already thrown out the myth that if I just sudoko or do crosswords, I'm keeping my brain, my brain working.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you bring up a couple of different things. First of all, social interaction absolutely correlates with better cognitive outcomes. And I personally think that part of that is because you're stimulating the brain by processing language, you're using language. There's also a lot of emotional support that comes from having friends and from being there for people.
So I think that's a little bit of a separate thing than the brain training. So to get more specific on the brain training, it could be as simple as brushing your teeth with your non dominant hand. That's going to force new connections. It could be traveling and not using Google Maps or some other GPS system to navigate, but really trying to form new mental maps the way that people used to do before all these technological tools came out. It could be something as intentional as, as bilateral asymmetry exercises.
The Japanese figured that out in the early 2000s and then the Koreans picked up on it and then the Brits picked up on it. I don't know why we don't do it more in this country. But bilateral asymmetry is things like draw sticks with your left hand up and down while you're drawing triangles with the right hand.
It takes some practice to do that. But once you learn how to do that, you have forced new neural connections.
And those are easy, simple things that people can do in just a few minutes a day to stimulate more of those synaptic connections.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: So let me ask you, because we're getting close to the end of our segment, what should people do this week? If they picked one thing, it would move the needle the most if they want to protect their brain.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: Now, I really think people should look at which of the lifestyle factors I mentioned are you weakest in. Focus on that and take a step forward.
So many people are sedentary.
Don't try to just start by going to the gym. How about you start with seven one minute movement snacks per day, get up once an hour and move for one minute. And there's a ton of stuff that you could do to be moving, take that step forward or find one food that you can stop eating that's going to move your blood sugar in the right direction.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: I love it. Those are real tactical things. So one minute. Movement snacks. We've talked about movement snacks in the past to kind of give ourselves a break state and to manage our mental health. Well, here you got it. It's not just our mental health that that benefits when we do those movements. Next, folks, folks. So let's integrate one thing, one lifestyle thing today so that we can protect our brain. You know, this, this really reminds us that brain health is not something we can afford to ignore until there's a crisis. Your brain is being shaped every single day by how you move, sleep, eat, how you connect, and how you manage stress. And the best time to protect your brain is long before you think you need to. We're going to take a short break and when we come back, we're going to dive into one of the biggest misconceptions in dementia care. Why what looks like aggression, confusion and resistance might actually be fear overwhelming a brain begging for help. Stay with us. More vital signs after this.
Welcome back to Vital Signs. Loving what you're watching. Stay connected to this show and every NOW Media tv favorite live or on demand, anytime you like. Download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and unlock nonstop bilingual programming in English and Spanish on the move. Prefer podcast, podcast version at www.nowmedia.tv. from business and news to lifestyle culture and more, we are streaming around the clock. Ready when you are, folks. We're going to dive right back in. I'm here with Eric Collette, founder and CEO of A Mind for All Seasons. We we're talking brain health, dementia, Alzheimer's disease, and how families can better understand what's happening in the brain before and after diagnosis. If you've ever cared for someone with dementia, you may have seen anger, anxiety, confusion, withdrawal, resistance, and fear. But what if those behaviors are not personality problems at all? What if they're actually brain signals that we have misunderstood for decades?
We're going to get the down low today with Eric. Eric, tell me, why does dementia change behavior so dramatically?
[00:13:38] Speaker B: When I got a communication degree, I learned that behavior is communication and humans cannot not communicate. But since I've learned that behavior is also an outward manifestation of an internal state. In other words, when structures in the brain are changing, you see it outwardly in terms of behavior. And what most families caring for people living with dementia are unaware of is just how profound those Changes are. If you could look at the Alzheimer's brain in advanced stages, you would see that the brain loses 50 to 70% of its mass. There's tremendous shrinkage. The ventricles, the fluid filled spaces in the brain, really open up. There's a loss of tissue that's pretty massive. And that loss is particularly profound in an area called the hippocampus, which is like the librarian of the brain, the memory center of the brain.
If you walked up to someone in a full leg cast because they had a femur fracture, I'm confident that no one watching this would ever say, hey, just take the cast off, it's all in your head. Come on, we're going skiing or we're going to go jogging. That would be absolutely ridiculous. Because when people have missing or damaged body parts, we tend to see the need and we respond appropriately.
But when people have missing or damaged body parts on the inside, like they're missing all but a tiny little fraction of the memory center of their brain, we don't see the deficit. We're not reminded that, hey, there's a body part missing. And so we do and say stupid things like, hey, don't you remember we just talked about that two minutes ago, or I just told you, mom. Or the. The worst problem that I see is that both family and professional caregivers imply, don't you remember in many different ways, if you walk into a room with someone and you actually take time to connect with them in meaningful ways and you build a little bit of trust before you start trying to assist them, and then you're right in the middle of helping them get ready for bed and a call light goes off and you go to the room next door and you're not thinking about the fact that this person's memory is good for sometimes just seconds. Then as soon as you come back in the room, if you start picking up where you left off, what you're basically saying is, well, don't you remember? I was here for a few minutes. We built all sorts of trust and connection. You were letting me help with things. And if you go straight to the task, when you come back in the room, you're going to have serious problems. Because to the other person, it might feel like they're in their room minding their own business and some random stranger walks in and just starts getting after things.
And I'm confident that any of us, if a random stranger showed up in our bedroom at night and started trying to manhandle us in some way, we would fight for all we're worth. And it would be logical from that point of view. The problem is when people are living with dementia, we don't see those missing and damaged body parts, and we assume that they're just being combative or aggressive or resistive to care. And nothing could be further from the truth.
[00:16:34] Speaker A: You know, you've. You've kind of described a little bit of the task trap here and why focusing just on the tasks and getting it done could actually aggravate, for example, you know, the irritation factor or the aggression.
What other things? What might be contributing to these behaviors? And I'm. I'm going to point to something that even those of us who have healthy brain function, like sensory overload, constantly having the TV on, having the cell phone or whatnot, like, what other things are we not thinking of as caregivers that could be adding to some of these behaviors and actually exacerbating them.
[00:17:18] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot to comment on in what you just put out there, Jen, because you're right.
If someone is already close to the threshold, think of our cognitive threshold, where when you step over the line, things just unravel. You just can't handle life. Think of it as kind of like a cliff. And if life is really good, if we're not living with dementia, if our brains are healthy, we're pretty far away from the cliff, and we all have a point where we could go over the cliff and just unravel and be struggling because we've used up energy in the brain and we're just not at our best.
We all have moments where we've had a really hard day and we get home and something happens and we sort of snap and.
And for most of us, that's called having a bad day, or we're stressed or we're tired, we're exhausted.
When it happens with people living with dementia, it often gets labeled as inappropriate behavior. And I don't think that that's fair to them. The situation for people with dementia is often that they're much closer to the edge of the cliff because their brains are not making good energy to begin with.
For example, when the language center of the brain starts to deteriorate, lot of other sensory inputs tend to get cranked up.
So what sounds like a more calm room to you and me might sound really agitating to someone who's just already close to their threshold.
Too much light, too much sound, too many people too much to process quickly exhausts their cells of the energy required to deal with all of that stuff.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: And.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: And they Just unravel quickly.
I'll give you one other quick example if we've got just a minute for it.
Sensory deficits are something that I mentioned in the earlier segment, that changes in what we're seeing and how we're perceiving that and what we're hearing. And other senses tend to show up years or decades before cognitive symptoms even show up. So these issues can become profound. So let's pick one sensory issue and talk about how it shows up in terms of behavior.
Many people living with Alzheimer's disease lose peripheral vision. They lose depth perception. They don't see things that are similar in color when they're right next to each other. And that means suppose that you had advanced dementia, Jen, and you were sitting at the table minding your own business, and I walked up and I noticed that you had some food on your chin.
If I fall into the task trap, which means I go straight to the task, I skip over the step of connecting with you. So now I'm just this random stranger showing up.
When we combine that with a 10 degree visual field and you can't even see things very well, and I grab a washcloth and I say, you got some food on your chin. Let me get it for you. And I just reach right in. Now this hand shows up out of nowhere. There's a closed fist around a washcloth.
Any sane person that has something show up in their visual field out of the blue has two choices. You either dodge or you swing at it. The problem is when someone with dementia takes the swing, they. They get labeled as combative and aggressive. And often they get put on psychotropic drugs, which do a lousy job controlling visual processing problems. We need to accommodate their sensory deficits, and we get a lot further. And the behavior doesn't happen because we're seeing the world through their eyes and meeting them where they are. That makes all the difference.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: And so let me ask you then, as a caregiver, and I've been a caregiver, many of us who are watching have been caregivers. But what do we do once that emotional reaction happens? Maybe they are combative or like maybe they're being aggressive and they're just reacting and we're labeling it unfairly. But what is the one thing we can do or change immediately that can de escalate the system, the situation?
You know, we focus in healthcare. I've witnessed it. I've witnessed both family members and health care providers.
They immediately move into correction instead of even validation that, hey, you know, this fist just Appeared out of nowhere.
It's a very normal reaction. So what can we do as caregivers, as healthcare providers, as family members today to sort of shift how we. How we interact so that we can de escalate once one of those things happens?
[00:21:34] Speaker B: Yeah. I think it's more complex than just one quick answer, but I think some principles can get us a little bit further. One that you were implying is we've got to validate emotional experience.
Whatever is happening with someone and whatever they're feeling, it's real in that moment. And so rather than categorizing or judging emotional experience, like deciding, is this good emotion, is this bad emotion, or trying to say things like, you shouldn't just calm down, it's okay. Which is very invalidating. I think we need to observe and label emotional experience. You seem frustrated or, oh, I'm so sorry. That didn't, you know, I got in your way. That didn't work.
So that's part of it. But I also think that we need to treat it almost like we would approach an angry dog.
I remember a resident I took care of years ago when I was running a memory care community named Butch. And Butch got to the point that he had basically two responses to anything. He would either say, yeah, or he'd say and just be furious. And one day the staff called and said, eric, we need so much help here. We. Butch doesn't have anything on except an adult brief, and it's really saturated. And he won't let us assist him. He won't let us get close. So I walked into the room, and the first thing that I did was pause before going in and think about how. How can I see him and treat him as a human and not as an object?
So I tried to get my mindset right, and I walked in and I smiled. I held my hands open so that he could see that I wasn't holding on to anything. And I said, hi, Butch. But I was at a real distance, and I immediately sat down in a chair next to his door so that I was not hovering over him. He was on the other side of the room.
Once I sat there and I just smiled at him and didn't say anything else. He looked at his clenched fist, and he started looking at them and looking at me and looking at them and. And pretty soon the fists unclenched, and I thought, okay, we're getting a little bit progress here. So then I moved a little closer. I went over to a part of the room where there was a calendar on the wall with all of his old dogs. And I started commenting, are these your dogs? And he said, yeah, we talked a little bit more. I got a little bit closer to him. So you have to gradually move closer and establish trust at closer and closer levels before you can do something as intrusive as assist someone to change their adult brief.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: I think that was a really excellent example. And so if you're watching what this is really reminding us, dementia changes memory, but it really doesn't remove humanity. So if someone's upset, the first move is not correction, it's connection. Stop correcting, validate the emotion and. And establish that human connection.
Look for that pain, that confusion, that fear, that overwhelm, and see how our body language can be and our human connection can deescalate the situation. I think that's really fantastic. Connection calms the brain faster than logic does. We do have to take a short break, but when we come back, we're going to dive into the future of dementia care, from early detection to lifestyle medicine, and why some experts believe we may be entering a completely new era of brain health. Stick around.
Welcome back to Vital Signs. I am here with Eric Collette, founder and CEO of Mind for All Seasons. And before the break, we were talking about really and remembering the humanity in either the patients or the family members that we are caregiving for. And now I'm going to shift that conversation and really talk about hope. Because for years, Alzheimer's was treated like it was an unstoppable disease. There was nothing we can do about it. But today, neuroscience is uncovering powerful, powerful realizations. The brain may be far more adaptable and protectable than we once believed. We're seeing breakthroughs in everything from early detection and lifestyle medicine to inflammation research to metabolic health and cognitive resilience.
And we're able to better educate our caregivers.
So I guess the question becomes, what actually matters?
Eric, after decades in this field, I mean, you've been. You're an expert. You're a true expert, and you've seen this evolution over the past couple of decades. What is it that gives you the most hope right now?
[00:26:31] Speaker B: Honestly, the most hope that I have comes from clients that I've worked with. I'm blessed to have worked with thousands of people across the country, and I cannot tell you how many times I've seen people show dramatic improvement. And so, for example, earlier today, I was with our members in our weekly masterclass, and there was a husband and wife that was there. The wife started her journey with a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer's disease. And A Montreal cognitive assessment score of 14 out of 30.
So she had pretty profound dementia. But by focusing on what she was eating and how she was moving and sensory issues and focusing on nutrients and hormones and inflammatory markers and metabolic markers that are all measurable in blood tests, and then doing things about problems that were found, she has gone now from a score of 14 out of 30 to 24 out of 30. And her husband today said, I think she's actually higher than that now. It's been a little while since she's done the test, and when she first started this journey, she could hardly put words together. She was very articulate. Today, she was asking questions in the Q and A in our masterclass. And I never get tired of seeing people show improvement like that.
I would never call it a cure at this point, but having seen that time after time, I know that we can do things for the majority of people that changes the trajectory of the disease. And as far as prevention, that's really where things need to focus. Because the best way to treat Alzheimer's disease is to never get it in the first place. And now that we know it starts decades before cognitive symptoms show up, we can focus on things early on, like looking at sensory decline, doing something about that, looking at what shows up in blood tests, and intervening on those markers, and you get better brain functioning today, and you get to dramatically reduce your risk of dementia tomorrow.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: You know, we talked a little bit about the sensory deficits being one of the earliest signs of early onset or warning signs that, hey, you have elevated risk.
What are some of the other earliest warning signs that people tend to miss?
[00:28:39] Speaker B: I think very often people, like I said in an earlier segment, confuse what is common with being normal.
And memory loss is a common thing as people get older. And yet in our society, we joke about it. I hear people all the time say, oh, I had a senior moment. Oh, I had a brain fart. And I think some of that joking is. Is to try to obscure the fact that they might actually be a little bit nervous about it now. We all forget where we placed our keys. We all walk into a room and forget why we're there. That happens at all different ages. There's a lot of things that we think might be a memory problem and they might be a focus problem. Maybe we're on the phone, we got a ton of stuff going on, and we get to the airport, we park someplace, and we go into the airport. And when we get back from our trip, we have no idea where we parked the car, because we were Completely distracted, that is normal. But if you are forgetting your grandchildren's names, are you. If you're forgetting key things that you did throughout the day and you look back and you have no idea what you did, that might be a real serious symptom. If you're progressively getting more and more forgetful and people around you are saying, well, you told me that just a few minutes ago, that's a really bad sign. But it doesn't mean there's nothing that could be done. It means let's get some help, let's intervene, let's do whatever we can to turn it around any way that we can.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: So let me ask you this, because this is common and I hear this all the time and I witnessed this and I've been guilty of this too. You talked about the difference between focus versus a memory problem.
How do we know the difference? Like, okay, I get in my car, I drive to work, and I don't remember driving to work because I've just not attended to it is very different than how the heck did I get here to begin with? I don't remember getting in the car.
Like, where is that line between focus and memory problem?
Is there something that we can do at home to sort of test for that or ascertain the difference? Because it's easy to say it's a focus problem.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: Yeah, there are a variety of cognitive tests that can be helpful. And unfortunately, many of the cognitive tests that people have done are just dementia screeners. And you can think of a dementia screening test like the Mini Mental State Exam or the Montreal Cognitive Assessment or the Slums test, or there's a bunch of them. Think of that as like a broad toothed comb. And we're just looking broadly to see have things deteriorated so much that now you can't really take care of yourself without some degree of support from others, your activities of daily living are compromised.
And with that broad toothed comb approach, we're going to miss a whole lot of stuff. But there are other cognitive tests that are a more fine toothed comb. And when you're actually put to it and you're tested and it makes it a little bit easier to see if there's genuinely a problem that we need to be aware of or if there are just other factors, like you're perpetually distracted and what's at the root of that.
[00:31:35] Speaker A: And you know, in today's world, I think that's something that we really need to keep paying attention to. So I'm going to ask the question you may or may not know the answer to this, but we live in a perpetually distracted world. We've got a phone in our face, we're on social media, we're here recording on zoom, right? There's. There's so many things happening, and we're being like, we're in information overload all the time.
Like, is that a factor that contributes to some of the cognitive decline because of all of the noise that we just cease to learn? Is there a correlation there? And maybe there isn't, but I'm just, I'm really curious because we know there's a mental health correlation, but as far as cognition, I'm not aware. Is there something that we need to know about that?
[00:32:19] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. First of all, if you have a mental health diagnosis earlier in life, that's a dementia risk factor. And I'm increasingly of the opinion that it's just a spectrum of dysfunction and we don't have time to get into all the details on that. But I like how my friend, Dr. Ryan Williamson, who's a neurologist, puts it. He describes it as technostress. There's a lot of techno stress in the world. And part of the problem is that so many of the things that we're doing stimulate a lot of dopamine release. And dopamine is excitatory, which means it makes the next brain cell fire.
And Dr. Robert Lustig once put it this way, he said, neurons like to be tickled, not bludgeoned. And if you're constantly flooding neurons with dopamine, they have two choices. They either downregulate and become less sensitive to dopamine, or they die. So they're going to downregulate, which means the next go round, you need more of that hit. And so we get in this loop where we're just craving more and more of these hits. That's what drives doom scrolling.
What really helps the brain is the things that stimulate serotonin that act as more of a counterbalance. Serotonin is calming. You can have as much of it as you can generate, and you generate it by persistently doing something that's challenging and then getting the reward after you've put forth the effort. It's not the quick fix, it's the long haul, really being committed to something and then having the satisfaction that you achieved it.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: That's fantastic. Thank you for breaking that down for us.
You know, we're getting kind of close to the end of this segment, so I want to ask, you know, we talked a little bit about lifestyle, we talked a little Bit about early recognition. I've had Dr. Ryan Will Williamson on actually in the past, folks, you just add reference to a. A prior vital sign segment.
But when we are thinking about all of these things, earlier you talked about exercise. And so I want to go a little bit deeper into that because we've talked about metabolic health and hormones and nutrition and all of these different roles that protect the brain. But can you dive a little deeper into strength training, different types of movement and metabolic health for cognitive resilience? Like, what should we be thinking about? Maybe we are not totally sedentary.
Maybe we are walking on a daily basis or something.
Is there, is there something that we should add to our movement pattern that will help with cognitive resilience?
[00:34:49] Speaker B: First of all, I think consistency is key. I think the best type of exercise is whatever you'll be really consistent with day after day because that's going to give you more benefits than sporadic effort. But if you think about things like strength training, one of the reasons that that's so beneficial is that muscle has a really high concentration of mitochondria. And, and as we age, we tend to lose muscle mass, which means we're also losing a lot of our energy capacity. And fundamentally, diseases like Alzheimer's are a problem of low energy. So we've got to keep our energy production up. And when you combine it with the fact that low muscle mass leads to things like falls, which causes the brain to rattle around in the skull and further exacerbates an inflammatory problem, maintaining good muscle mass as we age should be a high priority for us.
But it's equally important to maintain good cardiovascular function. You can't have a great brain without good blood flow to the brain. So ideally, you'd have a combination of things that improve strength and things that improve cardiovascular health.
[00:35:50] Speaker A: Fantastic. Thank you for that. So, folks, I just want to. Just want to kind of summarize a little bit. Like, what's clear is the brain is not fixed. It responds to how we're living. This doesn't mean everything is within our control, and it doesn't mean that every diagnosis can be prevented, but it does mean that our daily choices really matter.
So you've just heard it. We've talked about these things in other arenas of health. But strength training, sleep, metabolic health, meaningful connection with other human beings, the nutrition that we're putting in and the ways that we're stimulating our brain, these are all part of how we protect our brain and create that resilience. We do have to take a short break, but when we return, we're going to talk about something every family fears, what happens after diagnosis and how to preserve dignity, connection and quality of life, as well as what does that mean for us and what can we do on a longevity and a health span standpoint. Coming up next, stick around.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Isn't it amazing how fast the time goes?
[00:37:16] Speaker A: Welcome back to Vital Signs. Loving what you're watching. Stay connected to us here in every other Now Media TV favorite, live on demand, anytime, anywhere on the Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS.
You can also catch the podcast version on Now Media TV. But back to our conversation with Eric Collette.
This is our last segment of the show, and I want to focus on what really matters in this conversation. You know, we talked a lot about how we can prevent, how we can, how we can reverse, if you will, some of the symptomology behind dementia.
But that diagnosis changes a family forever.
It doesn't erase the identity or connections or the ability to experience joy. So I kind of want to ask you a little bit about what families tend to struggle with emotionally that no one prepares them for when a loved one gets a diagnosis like Alzheimer's or enters in a more advanced stage of dementia.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: I think it's difficult to even put into words what families go through.
And unless you've supported people at a deep level or you've been through it yourself, I think many people just don't fully understand what it's like and how profound the losses can be.
It's very easy when someone is experiencing major declines to start focusing on the task trap. And we've talked about that in other segments and, and we start to see people and how we need to interact with them as just a list of tasks, their activities of daily living and in professional arenas and sometimes even in the home, it's very easy to start defining success as keeping people clean and dry in seasonally appropriate clothing and giving them three square meals and giving them their pills on time. And we're so focused on doing those things that we convince ourselves if we do that, that we've done something amazing and we deserve five gold stars.
And for you and me, Jen, and for people watching this, if that was all that our day was, that's a bare minimum day.
It's easy to forget that who we are is largely what happens after our ADLs are performed. Our identity is very different than our ADLs. And so one of the key things that I think families can do is focus on who their loved one is. And if they have care professionals Involved, help them know how that person is used to seeing themselves.
Humans hate to be treated in a way that's different than how they see themselves. And often success starts with seeing the person, understanding their identity, and connecting them with them in ways that are consistent with how they see themselves.
So to break it down just a little bit more, I think we have two choices fundamentally, in all of our interactions with people.
We can see them as people or we can see them as objects. And as the Arbinger Institute put it in some of their books years ago, when you're treating someone as an object, there's only three possibilities. They're either an obstacle in your path, a vehicle that you're using, or they are irrelevant to you, and nobody likes to be treated that way. If you drop kick an object, it'll go in whatever direction you kick it, but the minute you kick a person, they're going to kick you back.
And a lot of people figuratively are putting their loved ones or others that they're serving in a situation where they're feeling kicked, they're feeling treated as an object because we're skipping step one of every interaction, which is to connect with someone in a meaningful way and to recognize who they really are and who they've always been, and to treat them in ways that match that.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: Well, let me, let me go a little deeper in this, because for those who are watching, who are caregivers, who are going, oh, my gosh, I see, I see that, I'm doing that, then guilt comes into play.
So, and honestly, when we're caregiving, guilt comes into play anyway when we, when, when there's a little bit of resentment, because I really want to do xyz, but I have to caregive for mom or grandmother or whomever that may be. So can you speak a little bit to guilt? And really that, that being on an island, that feeling of isolation, that, that happens during the caregiving journey, and what can we do about it if we're caregivers and we're feeling isolated or we're moving through the grieving process, or we're feeling that guilt, like, what, what can we be doing, what, what can we do today to sort of climb out of that space? Because I think a lot of, a lot of that is a compounding effect, right? It's. It compounds upon itself and it makes it harder and harder to preserve dignity and identity if we're feeling that resentment and, and that isolation as a caregiver.
[00:42:01] Speaker B: Yeah, so true. I think when we get caught in that guilt cycle, that you're talking about, Jen, that it becomes easy to make the interaction more about us and less about our relationship with the other person and seeing them and acknowledging them and helping them by improving the moment that we're in. So as far as the guilt goes, I think, number one, it's important to acknowledge that guilt is part of the grief process.
And there are many times in the last 26 years where I've chatted with a family and I've said, it's okay, you're grieving. And I understand that. And they've said, grieving? What are you talking about? This person hasn't died.
And I've been reminded that many people don't recognize that when there's loss, there's grief.
They think that grief is only about a death.
And as soon as people have permission to feel and to acknowledge that they're experiencing major loss and it's okay to feel grief, then they all of a sudden have permission to feel. And part of what drives anxiety and challenges with our emotions is when we start having anxiety about having anxiety, we start overthinking our emotions.
So I think one of the things that people can do today is, number one, just acknowledge that it's normal. But then let me give you a framework that I got from my friend Dr. Nick Wignal, who's a clinical psychologist, brilliant thinker. I love his work. But he has a framework that's really helpful for dealing with some of these types of moments. It's called Ava, where you acknowledge what you're feeling. You recognize, oh, I think I'm feeling some guilt. I think I'm feeling frustration. I think I'm feeling anger. Whatever it is, you just label it, you acknowledge it, and then you validate it by simply saying, it makes sense that I would be feeling that in this situation.
That last interaction didn't go as well as I wanted it to or unraveled in a way that was unpredictable.
And I'm not liking the way that I responded. And it makes sense that I would be feeling a little bit of guilt about that. But then the A in the framework is to act.
And you just simply ask yourself, what am I going to do now? How am I going to move forward? What can I do that would be helpful?
I think so many times we're interacting with others on the basis of what we think is deserved, either for them or for us.
And we get further when we interact on the basis of what would be helpful.
So instead of saying, what do I deserve? What do they deserve? It's well how could I help in this situation? If we're dealing with a bad moment, what could I do to move to a better moment?
Not what's justified, not what's logical, not what makes the most sense, but how do I act in a way that creates a better condition for both of us?
I think when we do that, we're able to get past the emotional trigger, the anxiety, the frustration, the fear, the concern, the guilt, and we're able to stay centered in the moment and focused on the other person in a way that truly supports them and helps us feel like we're progressing.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: Wow, you dropped some major gems there. I just want to sort of wrap this up because we're unfortunately out of time. And so I love this. Acknowledge what you're feeling, validate that it makes sense that you're feeling that way, and then act in a way that's coming from the space of how can I help? As opposed to what. What needs to happen or should happen or just is deserved. And then the other thing I really want everyone watching to take away is grief is normal. You're experiencing loss, and it's not loss associated with death. It's. It's loss of the, the. Of the identity of that loved one that you have. And so it's normal to go through the grieving process and you don't have to do this alone. Eric, thank you so much for your valuable insights. If the audience would like to learn more about you, about A Mind for All Seasons, about your work, where can they find you? Where can they connect with you?
[00:45:56] Speaker B: You can connect with, with me directly on LinkedIn at Eric D. Colette, or you can go to A Mind forAll Seasons.com where you could subscribe to a free daily video called the Caregiver Minute. Or you could sign up for our weekly newsletter. We've got other tools and resources. There's.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: Thank you so much. This has been really appreciated. I think this was a much needed conversation. And even though I wanted to go in a little bit of a different direction for this last segment, I think that where we went was exactly where we needed to go.
So let me ask you to, in closing, what is the one thing that you think would be most powerful for people who are caregiving and in order for them to move forward? Like, what is the one, one thing you want all of these people watching to take away from them from this today?
[00:46:47] Speaker B: I think it's actually something that we didn't talk about earlier, Jen, which is the simple principle that dull knives don't cut very well. I think some people feel a lot of guilt when they're in a caregiving situation about doing anything for themselves.
And it's a good thing to sacrifice for the needs of others. But dull knives don't cut very well. And I think most caregivers need to take just a little bit more time to sharpen themselves and to get some support that they need.
[00:47:14] Speaker A: Thank you. What you're talking about is caregiving for caregivers, folks. We cannot pour from an empty cup.
So thank you for that. Thank you for your expertise today. I appreciate you being here, Eric.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: My pleasure.
[00:47:26] Speaker A: And you. Yes, you. All good things come to an end, including this show.
But I want you to take away that the best time to protect your brain is long before you think you need to.
Eric was great in. In sharing with us that it really is about the lifestyle choices that we make. We can make small, daily choices to support our lifelong brain health. I invite you to keep listening to the signals your body and your brain are giving you. Protect your sleep, move your body, stay connected on a human level, keep learning. And above all, for help sooner the minute you have a gut check and think that you need it.
Remember, health isn't just about living longer. It's about living with the clarity, the connection, the dignity and the purpose and having that health span match your life, your lifespan. I'm Jen Gode. You've been watching vital signs where we have learned how to protect our greatest asset, our health. See you same time, same station next week and have an amazing rest of your day.
