People living with a spouse or partner have a 50 per cent lower chance of developing alzheimers disease.

New research conducted in Sweden and published on the Irish Health website, found that people who grow to middle age and still live with a partner, are less likely to develop dementia.

Those who lost their partners before middle age and then continued to live as widows or widowers are six times more likely to develop the disease when compared to married couples.

The length of time a person has been single and for what reason also affects the chance of developing dementia. Those who lived alone their entire adult life ran twice the risk while those who were divorced in mid-life but remained single ran three times the risk.

This suggest that social and intellectual stimulation and the incidence of trauma are influencing factors in developing alzheimers.

The study examined two thousand people at the age of 50 and then re-examined them 21 years later. This in itself was different from other studies which normally only look at people later in life. For more information on alzheimers visit www.irishhealth.com.

Comments (0) »

Show/Hide comment form

Name

Email

Title

Comment

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment