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I RECENTLY WROTE about things we can do to protect our finances in the event we suffer cognitive decline. This may not be anybody’s favorite subject, but it’s an important one.
Many of us have first-hand experience with the ravages of dementia. It can upend a carefully crafted retirement plan and necessitate costly medical care. Like many of my friends and colleagues, I’d like to know if there are things I can do to prevent or forestall the onset of mental decline.
Harvard Medical School published an article listing six factors that may help prevent cognitive decline:
A friend’s mother suffered from severe Alzheimer’s disease. He was concerned that this might increase his risk, and he expressed this concern to his doctor at an annual checkup. The doctor had a similar family history and shared my friend’s concern. He told him that he’d been studying dementia for a number of years and that, among the studies he’d reviewed, the one common element in reducing the risk of dementia was walking.
A recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association’s neurology publication added some credence to my friend’s anecdote. The article describes a study that monitored more than 78,000 adults and looked at the relationship between the number of steps walked each day and the chances of developing dementia.
The article referenced previous findings that indicated that walking reduces the risk of many of the causes of illness and mortality, including cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes. The article states that “an optimal dose of 6,000 to 8,000 steps has been suggested to reduce the risk of all-cause mortality.”
In our previous home in suburban Philadelphia, there were limited opportunities to walk to a store or café. I usually walked around the neighborhood or drove to a park.
Our oldest son and his family live in Manhattan. Walking is a way of life for them. It’s how they go shopping, get to the park, go to school and visit friends. They routinely exceed 10,000 steps per day. When we visit, we also walk everywhere.
In our current home, I still take walks just for exercise. There are lots of destinations to walk to, including downtown cafes and restaurants, plus there’s a 2.5-mile-long boardwalk.
I like to think of this as functional walking. Combining brain-healthy walking with an errand or a social occasion is a great “two-fer.” There’s something especially gratifying about walking to a store, coffee shop or restaurant. You feel like you earned that cafe latte.
My commitment to regular walking will be tested in the near future. I’m planning to have my left knee replaced in early January. I had my right knee replaced in September 2019. I waited too long to have that one replaced; the last year prior to the surgery was one of constant pain and very limited mobility. A two-week trip to Italy in May of that year was largely wasted.
The left knee has been mostly pain-free, but the X-rays don’t lie. There’s hardly any cartilage left and bone spurs abound. The surgeon told me I was “one fall or twist” from a lot of pain. An hour of pickleball yesterday confirmed the doctor’s warning. It’s sore today, though not too bad. I’ll take a walk after I finish writing this.
I’m thankful that the medical technology is available to help people like me overcome the challenges of age and excess. I look forward to continuing to walk for many more years. And I’m gladdened that it may help me stay mentally sharp as well.
Richard Connor is a semi-retired aerospace engineer with a keen interest in finance. He enjoys a wide variety of other interests, including chasing grandkids, space, sports, travel, winemaking and reading. Follow Rick on Twitter @RConnor609 and check out his earlier articles.
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As a retired Physical Therapist and Certified Athletic Trainer I have always known about the positive effect of exercise. I first started going to a gym when I turned 30 as the grandfather whose genes I acquired had his first heart attack before he was 50 and didn’t live to 70. Both of my parents died at about 85 with dementia and my twin brother died of dementia before he turned 60. The benefits that Rick notes here can be attained by any moderate aerobic exercise (that which increases your respiratory rate) on a regular basis, but don’t forget weight training as the more muscle mass you obtain the greater your basal metabolism rate (You burn more calories just existing).
My mother in law has never been one to walk much or exercise and on Christmas Day she will turn 101, mentally is as sharp as a tack, lives with her second husband (remarried in her mid 90s) in independent senior housing and still goes grocery shopping occasionally. Her mother lived into her mid nineties, and her aunt lived to 104 and 1/2, both mentally sharp till the end. Guess genes play a big part too.
So for our financial planning? It accounts for my wife to live to 100. At that point I expect to be long gone, and she will be my children’s responsibility.
Good luck with the surgery. You don’t need to “just” walk. I ran for 30 years, and moved to a mountain bike when my knees started acting up, about 20 years ago. I had my right knee replaced in May of 2020, just as COVID was closing things down. I retired about the same time. By Fall 2020 I was able to bike 30 miles on the Virginia Creeper rails-to-trails path (very flat). I had an unexpected (little warning until the pain became acute) left hip replacement in February of this year. I’m back up to as much as 20 miles at a time on a nearby mountain bike trail. I live in Raleigh, NC and can pretty much bike all year long, but when the weather is really bad, I go to the YMCA for strength training. I turn 70 in about 6 months. Exercising this much a day requires a significant time commitment and coordination with family activities, but is doable.