P1 In the UK, dementia (โรคสมองเสื่อม), has become a major challenge for our society. We have an increasing population of adults aged over 65 years and the number of people living with dementia in the UK set to rise from about 850,000 to 2 million by 2051. Researchers from the FMRIB Centre at the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford explain how important it is to keep mobile as you grow older and if you have dementia. Although the major cause of dementia is a progressive decrease in mental abilities, mobility difficulties are one of many symptoms of the disease. Adults with dementia walk slower and have poorer balance. When they try to gain balance, it may lead to an increased number of falls and a reduced ability to move around safely and independently, which can make even simple activities of daily living difficult. Such changes will impact upon both the individual and their caregivers.
P2 Mobility problems do not only affect people living with dementia, but they are also common in older adults. Recently, research has shown that mobility is linked to cognition and brain measures of older adults. For example, it has been shown that older adults with good physical balance and walking speed perform better on tests of memory and reasoning. Further, individual studies have shown that a lower level of physical function (e.g. a slower walk) is a risk factor for a more rapid rate of cognitive decline and an increased risk of dementia. Similar effects have also been observed using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans. For instance, more mobile adults have greater medial temporal volumes, a brain region associated with memory, than their mobility-impaired counterparts.