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Alzheimer’s and Dementia

Neuroplasticity Therapies may be useful for Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia (and for helping to guard against its onset).

Below you will see a description of the outward symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia, however, it is really important to note that a professional using neuroplasticity therapies will decide upon a treatment plan using much more than just symptoms.  This is because neuroplasticity therapies aim to target a particular part/s of the brain, based on an individual assessment.  Outward symptoms are simply not enough information to guide a treatment plan, and a professional working with neuroplasticity therapies will be guided by an individual’s assessment.  Although some general therapies and activities can help with Alzheimer’s Disease, the more personalised a treatment plan is, the better.

Treat the patient not the diagnosis

To understand this better, it is really recommended that you read this article from ‘Treat the patient, not the diagnosis :

Alzheimer’s Disease Symptoms

The DSM-5 now uses “major neurocognitive disorder” and “mild neurocognitive disorder” to cover conditions such as Alezheimer’s and dementia. The new terms focus on a decline, rather than a deficit, in function. Symptoms include when there is an impairment present in one or (usually) more cognitive domains, such as memory and problem solving. The impairment is significant in that it interferes with independence in everyday activities.

NB in Neuro plasticity therapies, typically, symptoms provide only a part of the information necessary to form a picture of how well a person’s brain is functioning, and where it might need some attention.  Instead, further assessments provide a much fuller picture of brain function, where issues lie and indicate what treatments and protocols may be of help.

Neuroplasticity Therapies for Alzheimer’s and dementia

If you imagine the brain as like a house, there are several ways to get into a house:

  • doors
  • windows
  • letterbox
  • and, if you are Father Christmas, the chimney!

In a similar way there are many possible routes into the brain, or more accurately, routes to stimulate the brain.  These can include movement, balance, vision, listening, taste, smell, and many more.  The brain does not operate its regions in isolation (this is the concept of the connectome – some information about this is here: http://www.humanconnectomeproject.org/about/), and hence ‘going into the brain via one route’ can often stimulate more than just the regions predominantly responsible for that task. For example, if you used vision to stimulate the brain, although there is a region of the brain with the primary responsibility for vision (the occipital lobe), it interacts with various other brain regions in order to generate clear sight.  This means that using sight, we can stimulate (activate) various brain regions, and a skilled neuroplasticity therapies professional will be aiming to stimulate specific areas of the brain via using such a technique.

It is also crucial to understand that in order for neuroplasticity therapies to have their greatest potential effect in the brain, so the brain needs to be as healthy as possible.  For this reason, a practitioner is likely to want to offer advice (or referrals to relevant colleagues) on factors such as diet and sleep.

What to expect

Using various assessments, you should expect a professional using Neuroplasticity Therapies to always take into account much more than just the external symptoms which come with the diagnosis.  They will usually achieve this via assessments to establish what is going on in the brain.  Once they have an understanding of what regions need attention, they will carry out interventions with you and are likely to ask you to complete some interventions in your own time, for a set duration.

Further resources

To understand more about Neuroplasticity Therapies (including where to find a therapist), you can:

Neuroplasticity Therapies.

Discover the wide range of sensory, balance, movement, lifestyle therapies incorporated under neuroplasticity therapies.

Neuroplasticity Therapies aim to optimise brain ...

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Neuroplasticity Therapies aim to optimise brain ...

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Neuroplasticity Therapies aim to optimise brain ...

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Neuroplasticity Therapies aim to optimise brain ...

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Neuroplasticity Therapies aim to optimise brain ...

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Neuroplasticity Therapies aim to optimise brain ...

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