Neuroplasticity and dementia

I really need to learn a lot more about dementia and neuroplasticity.

I'm winging it when it comes to challenging drug treatments which don't heal the brain. I'm so reckless in this respect I should be a gp.

I wonder if neuroplasticity could be used to lessen the impact of dementia, perhaps as an early intervention technique.

I'm guessing wildly in the dark. I'm guessing as people retire some take up active pursuits and others don't. Some may retire to watch TV whereas others may do other life activities which help program the brain to work.

It doesn't have to be work which achieves this brain training. I would suggest the elderly should be enjoying the best years of their life. By keeping their body active some are stay healthy and living longer. Brain training therapy or activities designed to combat the sort of dementia symptoms which lead to the use of the chemical cosh.

It might be playing sudoku or computer games. I'm not sure what the elderly are into. It might be social contact but I think this may not be enough. Not sure. This is the sort of thing which someone must have researched. Can late life activities reduce the onset of dementia symptoms and their severity?

This sort of thing could be an alternative to the chemical cosh wherever it is used. Schizophrenics would ordinarily spend their lives in a ward until the changes in the 21st century. There they would be left to rot. Without the brain training which is forced through modern post-industrial age work systems schizophrenics, the demented and others would end up with brain detrioration perhaps and no optimisation through applied neuroplasticity. Cognitive deficits could be the result of treatment and life course rather than a disease. Brain differences may be what happens with different sorts of reality processing. Schizophrenic types may use different parts of their brain to process reality. Over time this leads to brain differences as well as the damage caused by treatment.

Again, I'm probably oversimplifying something which is a lot more complex. What I'm saying is the model of mental illness may be false and a result of other things. Treatment needs to think of new, non-drug avenues.

Sent from my smartphone