Author: Tracey McAlpine Category: Health, Mental Health, Psychology, Well-being
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‘The Essential Guide to Avoiding Dementia – understanding the risks’

The dreaded ‘D’ word is fast becoming the UK’s number one killer disease and the one that we now fear the most.  800,000 people are known to suffer from dementia today and even though there is no cure yet, there is a large amount of definitive research that indicates what changes we can make in our life to maybe help prevent the onset of this terrible disease.

A new book by Mary Jordan, called ‘The Essential Guide to Avoiding Dementia – understanding the risks’ is the first complete book of its kind that collects and clearly presents all the current research on the causes of dementia allowing readers to judge for themselves what actions they may want to take to ‘dodge the D word’.

Mary Jordan has experience on both sides of dementia care, personally and professionally, she currently works for a leading national dementia charity.  She has also written the award winning ‘End of Life Essential Guide to Caring’ and has worked in the NHS for many years.

The Essential Guide to Avoiding Dementia’ concisely pulls together a large body of research currently available on dementia.  Each chapter analyses research within individual areas and looks at what this tells us about the causes of dementia:

* Nutrition, exercise, personality, social behaviours, lifestyle choices – such as smoking, and drinking – are all looked at in detail and backed up by research findings.

* The impact of physical illness, such as diabetes, mental illness and depression are also reviewed, including the impact of infections and diseases.

* A whole chapter studies trauma from head injury plus post-traumatic stress and how stress in mid-life could add to the risk factors.

* Each chapter of the book concludes with a summery and very clear key points as well as full research references.

The eminent Professor, Graham Stokes, Director of Dementia Care at BUPA and visiting Professor in Person-Centred Dementia Care at the University of Bradford who has written the forward says, “By 2051 the number of people in the UK with dementia will have doubled”.

Mary Jordan wrote the book as a direct response to answer questions asked of her by carers or children of dementia patients she met in her line of work. 

In summary Mary Jordan advises people to keep up the exercise (the more types the better), eat more fat and get out more!

The Essential Guide to Avoiding Dementia – understanding the risks* by Mary Jordan. 

*Affiliate link