Extroverts are not calm and mature.
11
@Greg Not so, I know extroverts who are calm, and mature. What they also are are curious, lively, and fun to be with. They can also be exhausting.
And I know plenty of introverts who are easily stressed because people and much in the world are too much for them.
3
"Calmness and maturity have been linked to lower levels of stress" What's this? Calmness has been linked to lower levels of stress??? Why -why, that's BRILLIANT! Eureka! I'm shocked!
19
These are traits as observed in high school. Not necessarily current behaviors.
1
As a nurse, I was responsible for the care of victims of dementia for the last 18 years of my career. My patients came from a large variety of backgrounds, educational accomplishments, different personalities, and career types. Some were very active, while others weren't. The one thing they had in common was age. Most were over the age of 80, the exception being early onset dementia, known as experiencing symptoms prior to age 65. There has been lots of evidence that early onset dementia has a hereditary link.
As far as I'm concerned, we haven't learned much about why some people remain sharp well into their 90s while others start to experience cognitive decline in their 70s or 80s.
My own mother, who was a very active person, never overweight, and rarely took any medications, remained sharp until the age of 88. Now she is dependent and has lost all of her short term memory. She turned 94 on Oct. 18th.
I don't think are any simple answers or solutions to preventing or treating this disease. The reason it seems so common now is most likely due to the fact that far more people are living past the age of 85 than they did in the past.
73
The rapid increase in pharmaceutical drugs that Americans take might be the culprit. 50 years ago Americans were not taking anywhere near the prescriptions they take today. Also, we have an overload of toxic chemicals in our environment with Big Ag using excess amounts of pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides on our food.
11
@Jacquie 50 years ago, there weren't as many people who lived past the age of 85 as there are now. The risk of dementia greatly increases once an individual reaches age 85.
20
I don't know. My two paternal aunts barely ever took even an aspirin, but they both got dementia.
8
Indeed the 2 sharpest and fittest 90 year olds who I know, who do not know each other, both credit their sharpness, health, and longevity to strictly avoiding pills during their lifetimes. According to them, they suffered through aches and pains without pills- just used ice packs or whatever. They passed on antibiotics when sick, adjusted their diets and exercise instead of getting heart pill prescriptions. They did get all their vaccines though. Both feel very strongly that avoiding pills was what was different about them and their peers.
3
My father who has dementia had developed a way of talking to many people about many things and asking questions during his career. It was by following the language patterns he developed that he was not recognized as having cognitive issues for quite a while.
I recall the day we were having lunch at a restaurant in middle Georgia when a distinguished older man and his family came in. As they were being led to their table, the older man stopped and greeted my father, giving his name and offering hopes of good weather and a nice lunch before his family retrieved him. My father had no "pat" way of responding and was taken aback, the other man seemed a bit "off". A quick search for his name showed he was retired and had been the senior partner in a large, infuential law firm. Two older men, successful careers interacting with people and both having some cognitive issues.
The idea of introvert vs extrovert needs to accommodate the more developed and practiced language skills that can still be used. My father would frequently say things that were situationally appropriate but could not deconstruct their meaning or elaborate on them. It takes a practiced researcher to be able to know if a comment is simply the result of a figurative button being pushed or is actual synthesized thought. There is a difference.
29
@Margo
Nice comment if rather elaborate.
A problem in the early detection of dementia is that very facility to reply or joke when the person can't actually remember the answer to the question.
Likewise, the finding that smart people "seem" to delay the onset of their dementia yet at some point after, double their speed of decline and fall along the same doleful course with others.
7
I think a case could be made that Alzheimer's may be related to a malfunction of the blood brain barrier . This barrier keeps toxic chemicals from the brain.
Chemicals called surfactants are added to medications to enable these medications to travel through the blood brain barrier.
I have no problem with this but we use these same chemicals like polysorbate 80 in all sorts of cleaning compounds as well as using it as a food additive.
I find the wide spread use of these questionable chemicals very troubling.
13
I would like to know how calmness and maturity are scored-accurately determined on a paper-based test. The question of what leads to dementia is important, but this seems like malarky.
36
There's a general notion that nothing you do affects your chances of getting dementia, that your risk is determined by your genes. This study suggests other possibilities, and I would like to see reports on research that has been done on the influence of dietary habits on dementia risk.
4
@William - Extraversion vs. introversion may also be genetic. So it may not be that personality types predispose a person to develop dementia, but that a third factor (genes?) causes them both.
6
@William
There are identical twin pairs which differ on whether they had Alzheimer's or not. Yet, there is a genetic correlation. The amount of genetic influence is unknown.
1
Interesting topic and study seems to have been carried out well. However two major concerns about validity: first, the students had only reached the age of 70! Most dementia occurs after this age, leaving the question of whether there is a correlation still very much open, in my opinion. Second, there were ten character traits examined, and a significant correlation was found for only four of them. So the study really should be presented as showing there was no correlation with most of the traits: agreeableness, impulsiveness, leadership, tidiness, openness, or self-confidence. I realize such a boring finding would be unlikely to get much attention from anyone.
19