Dodging Dementia By Mary Jordan

There are around 900,000 people with dementia in Britain, with the number set to rise over the coming years.

Witnessing a family member with the disease is an experience I will never forget. My uncle was a bright and articulate man who succumbed to the disease. Watching his life slowly drain from his body and his memory fade was devastating.

The author Mary Jordan first experienced dementia when her mother-in-law had the disease. Mary then went on to find Adapt Dementia Ltd to help people find a better way to live with dementia, besides her many years of experience working for the charity Alzheimer’s Society.

The book guides the reader through how to assess your personal risk and the many things you can do to mitigate that risk based on the latest evidence. There appears to be a lot of evidence that shows that dementia takes about twenty years to manifest itself, though you can make changes much earlier in your life to help yourself.

Things such as social interaction, eating less sugar and processed foods, getting enough exercise, keeping your mind active, drinking in moderation, and getting at least seven hours of sleep a night are all factors that appear to lower the risk of getting dementia.

After reading the book, the feeling is that with changes to your lifestyle, dementia is not inevitable and that you can dodge the disease, though recognising all the changes you might have to make might not always be popular.

Mary’s ability to use her first-hand experience to illuminate points in the training makes the book an inspirational and motivating read. Mary offers a programme from which the reader can choose what works for them and their individual risks and circumstances, with an emphasis on what is practically, rather than theoretically, possible.