Regular consumption of coffee may reduce risk mental decline

Can coffee slow the gradual mentally decline associate with normal aging? Regular coffee consumption may reduce the risk of mental decline, dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The caffeine in coffee increases alertness and improves short term mental performance.

An important European study from the National Institute for Public Health and the Environment, Netherlands, suggests that drinking three cups of coffee a day can reduce the risk of mental decline in old age and cut the risk of Alzheimer’s by half.

The elderly have a higher level of adenosine a brain chemical that weakens gamma rhythms, which are involved in memory and learning processes. The caffeine appears to reduce the risk of memory loss and Alzheimer’s by blocking the effects of adenosine.

The Maastricht aging study, which included individuals ranging from 24 years to 81 years of age, found that the consumption of coffee appear to improve certain aspect of cognition such as long-term memory and motor speed relative to age-matched peers (Hum Pshychopharmacol 15, 573-581).

Given the high coffee consumption worldwide and the aging population in many countries, coffee’s apparent ability to protect cognition could have important implications.
Regular consumption of coffee may reduce risk mental decline

Mental Health Benefits of Exercise

Engagement in physical activity can have many benefits for population groups, for example psycho-social aspects such as positive emotional experiences, a sense of achievement, social interaction and mental health benefits.

In 1984, a report from a National Institute of Mental Health panel indicated that there were positive effects from acute and chronic exercise on anxiety and depression.

Exercise is known to effectively manage stress, anxiety, depression and other undesirable mood states. Exercise has a low to moderate anxiety-reducing effect. It can reduce long term anxiety tendencies and single exercise session can reduce short-term anxiety.

Aerobic exercise has a small-to-moderate effect on reducing tension, depression, fatigue and confusion and improves vigor.

Many physicians recommend exercise for their depressed and anxious patients, and the third edition of the Practice Guidelines published in 2010 supports exercise as a reasonable addition to treatment for major depressive disorder and as a primary initial treatment for mild depression by patient request.

The positive alliance between exercise and mental health has long been acknowledged, recognized nearly 100 years ago, with exercise being used as a component of recreational therapy for psychiatric patients.
Mental Health Benefits of Exercise

Positive Mind

Positive Mind
Many people believe that good health is related primarily to proper nutrition and physical fitness.

Whereas both are vital to health, the most important factor that determines your state of health is your mind.

Positive thoughts about yourself and others and positive emotions such as contentment and love contribute to vitality, optimism and joy which can motivate living healthfully, aid healing and recovery from illness and injury and increase longevity.

Negative thoughts and emotions contribute to depression, pessimism and decreased health and longevity.

In Western culture, they are accustomed to thinking of health and healing in terms of dugs, medical treatments and surgery.

In other cultures, past and present, health and healing are accomplished by mental processes such as faith, magic and spiritual practices.

Even in our culture we recognize that attitudes play an important role in promoting health and recovering from illness.

All physicians are aware that a person’s attitude greatly affects the probability of recovery from illness.

The mind affects health and well being because the mind and body make up a single, unified organism. No body exists without a mind; no mind exists without a body.

The mind and body communicate with each other by means of the nervous, endocrine (hormone), and immune systems, allowing thoughts, beliefs and feelings to change body chemistry and physiology.
Positive Mind

Mental Retardation in Children

Mental Retardation in Children
Organic Retardation
More severely retarded persons often have what is called organic retardation; that is, their retardation is due to some identifiable biological cause associated with hereditary factors, disease or injuries. Down syndrome, which is associated with an extra chromosome, is a familiar example of organic retardation. Many other forms of organic retardation are associated with prenatal risk factors – an alcohol mother, exposure to rubella and so on. Such children, because they are seriously delayed and often have physical defects, can often be identified at birth or during infancy.

Cultural Retardation
However, the most common form of mental retardation, cultural/familiar retardation, is not usually recognized until a child performs poorly on an IQ test in school. It appears to be related to some combination of low genetic potential and a poor environment. Culturally/familial retarded children are generally mildly retarded, come form poverty areas and have apparent or sibling who is also retarded. Probably 75% to 85% of mental retardation of this type: exact cause is unknown.

What becomes of mentally retarded children as they grown up? For one thing, their mental ages continue to increase well into adulthood because they are developing at a slower than normal pace, but for the same reason, their IQs remain low.
Generally, these mentally retarded adults had poor life outcomes in middle age in comparison with non retarded groups.
Mental Retardation in Children

Level of Mental Retardation

Level of Mental Retardation
Mental retardation is defined as “significant sub-average general intellectual functioning resulting in or associated with concurring impairments in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period”. Translated, this means that to be diagnosed as mentally retarded an individual must show, before adulthood, and IQ score below 70 and have difficulties meeting age-appropriate expectations in everyday life.

Four level of mental retardation are recognized, each of them representing a portion of the IQ range below 70: mild, moderate, severe, and profound.

A mildly retarded adult (IQ 55 to 69) is likely to have a mental age comparable to that of an 8 to 12 year old child. Mildly retarded persons can learn both academic and practical skill in school with special instruction and they can potentially work and live independently or with occasional help as adult.

Moderately retarded individuals (IQ 40 – 54) can also learn basic academic skills and many life skills, but they are more likely than mildly retarded people need supervision and support in order to hold jobs and live in the community.

Severely retarded persons (IQ 25 - 39) typically can learn many basic self-help skills and communications skills, but they typically master few academic skills and need a good deal of continuing training and support as adult.

Finally, profoundly retarded persons, with IQs below 25 and mental ages below years, show major delays in all areas of developmental and require basic care, often in an institutional setting, though they are important differences among mentally retarded individuals.
Level of Mental Retardation