Thursday, April 30, 2015

How being sick can change the way you think


            Dr. Sara Weisenbach’s article titled, The double burden of age and disease on cognition and quality of life in bipolar disorder, can show us a great deal about the detrimental effects certain illnesses can have on our cognitive skills. Her experiment specifically focused on two factors: aging and bipolar disorder and their effect on a plethora of cognitive skills. The results from her experiment were profound. Similarly, a study published by the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) showed the effects that obesity can have on cognitive skills. Many things can impact our cognitive skills with some things having a greater effect than others. It is important to understand how much of an impact things such as disease or disorders can have on our cognitive skills so that we can work towards preventing them.
            Dr. Weisenbach’s research discusses how aging can affect cognitive skills in people with bipolar disorder (BPD). BPD is a disorder associated with mood swings, from depression to mania. This study involved 80 individuals with BPD and 78 healthy individuals. There were four groups in total: Young HC, Old HC, Young BPD, and Old BPD. The researchers also tested cognitive skills such as memory, attention, psychomotor speed, emotional processing and executive functioning. The results of the experiment were profound with older BPD patients having the worst performance scores for cognitive tests. From these results we can conclude that aging plays a great role in the detrimental effects towards cognitive skills.
            Obesity can be considered a metabolic abnormality because it can be characterized by high blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, or triglycerides. The obesity study from the AAN involved 6,401 subject with an average age of about 50 years old. This was a ten year long study that involved healthy and obese individuals. They were studied over this period of time, specifically their performance on cognitive tests. These individuals were tested a total of three times throughout the length of the study. They were tested on their memory skills and their cognitive abilities. The results were prominent with obese individuals scoring 22.5 percent less than their healthier counterparts. Although Dr. Singh, the author of the study, believes these results can show us something important, he believes that more research should be done to eliminate the role of genetic factors.
            Both of these studies show a strong correlation between decreased cognitive abilities with disease. From this research we can learn to place a stronger emphasis on maintaining cognitive skills, even up until later years in life. It is important to maintain these skills because damages and changes to the brain are permanent for the most part. I believe more research should be done on how to improve cognitive abilities so that people with damages can recover. So far we have the knowledge of how to prevent this from occurring, so our next step should consider how to fix this situation. We can stress the importance of brain exercises, memory tests, certain diets, and restrictions. This research also has the potential to expand as well. We could potentially apply these results to systems other than the nervous system. How does disease or aging affect the immune system, or the cardiovascular system?
            There is a lot to learn from these studies. There is also a lot of potential for these studies to expand and deepen our knowledge in other areas of the body. We have to make the public aware of the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. The brain is a sensitive organ, surrounded by a thick skull, any damages to it can be extremely life threatening. Therefore, one must be careful and make healthy choices whenever possible.

References
American Academy of Neurology (AAN). (2012, August 20). Obesity, metabolic factors linked to faster cognitive decline. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 1, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120820160851.htm

Weisenbach, S. L., Marshall, D., Weldon, A. L., Ryan, K. A., Vederman, A. C., Kamali, M., Zubieta, J., McInnis, M. G., & Langenecker, S. A. (2014). The double burden of age and disease on cognition and quality of life in bipolar disorder. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. 29(1), 952-961. https://luc.app.box.com/s/4c031c26bsh2bj3619si/1/2926649189/24809638293/1




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