5 Top Causes of Sleep Problems in Aging, & Proven Ways to Treat Insomnia

What should you do if an older person complains of insomnia, or is not sleeping well at night?

Experts do believe that “normal aging” brings on some changes to sleep. (See this post for more on how sleep changes with aging.) Basically, older adults tend to get sleepy earlier in the evening, and tend to sleep less deeply than when they were younger.

So it’s probably not realistic to expect that as you get older, you’ll sleep as long or as soundly as when you were younger.

That said, although aging by itself does change sleep, it’s also quite common for older adults to develop health problems that can cause sleep disturbances. So if you’re older and aren’t sleeping well, you’ll want to make sure you’ve been checked for these. Figuring out what’s going on is always the first step in being able to improve things.

And remember, getting enough good quality sleep helps maintain brain health, physical health, and mood.

In this article, I’ll cover the top causes of sleep problems in older adults. I’ll also tell you about what approaches have been proven to work, to help treat insomnia and sleep problems in older adults.

Last but not least, if you (or your older relative) have experienced the very common combination of waking up to pee at night and difficulty sleeping, I highly recommend listening to this podcast episode, which features a geriatrician who is an expert on this: 092- Interview: Addressing Nighttime Urination & Insomnia in Aging.

5 Common Causes of Sleep Disturbances in Older Adults

[Read more…]

How to Promote Brain Health:
The Healthy Aging Checklist, Part 1

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

“Doctor, what do you recommend for healthy aging?”

“My mom is getting older and I want to help her stay healthy. What should we be doing?”

On this site, I usually write about how to manage or avoid specific aging health challenges. But in real life, I often get asked the questions above. After all, many people want advice on how to be healthier, or stay healthy.

That’s because we all intuitively know that maintaining good health (including cognitive function) is key to maintaining what is most important to us as we age: our ability to be physically and mentally capable, so that we can remain active, engaged in our lives, and as independent as possible.

We also know that poor health can bring on pain and other symptoms, as well as disabilities that can jeopardize how we live our usual lives. In fact, most “aging” problems that older adtuls and families struggle with — like difficulties with mobility, memory, or independence — track back to underlying health problems.

So it’s good to know how to maintain one’s health as one ages, in order to keep our minds and bodies working well for as long as possible.

Furthermore, healthy aging isn’t just about forestalling aging or disability. It’s also about knowing how to make the best of things even once you do have chronic diseases or chronic disabilities of the mind or body. I call this optimizing health, for better health while aging.

It means optimizing one’s health — and health care — so that the brain and body work at their best for now and for the future. And the beauty of this is that the same key things work, whether you are a “healthy” older person with no particular health problems versus someone who has chronic conditions or even an “uncurable” disabling disease such as Alzheimer’s.

In this series of posts, I’m going to tell you how to do this.

The Healthy Aging Checklist

For the healthiest aging, do this:

[Read more…]

4 Types of Brain-Slowing Medication to Avoid if You’re Worried About Memory

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

A few years ago, while I was at a family celebration, several people mentioned memory concerns to me.

Some were older adults concerned about the memory of their spouses. Some were adult children concerned about the short-term memory of their parents. And a few were older adults who have noticed some slowing down of their own memory.

“But you know, nothing much that can be done at my age,” remarked one man in his eighties.

Wrong. In fact, there is a lot that can and should be done, if you notice memory loss or thinking changes in yourself or in another older adult. And you should do it because it ends up making a difference for brain health and quality of life.

First among them: identify medications that make brain function worse.

This is not just my personal opinion. Identifying and reducing such medications is a mainstay of geriatrics practice. Among other reasons, we do find that in some people, certain medications are causing memory loss symptoms — or other cognitive symptoms — to be worse.

And the expert authors of the National Academy of Medicine report on Cognitive Aging agree: in their Action Guide for Individuals and Families, they list “Manage your medications” among their “Top 3 actions you can take to help protect your cognitive health as you age.”

Unfortunately, many older adults are unaware of this recommendation. And I can’t tell you how often I find that seniors are taking over-the-counter or prescription medications that dampen their brain function. Sometimes it’s truly necessary but often it’s not.

What especially troubles me is that most of these older adults — and their families — have no idea that many have been linked to developing dementia, or to worsening of dementia symptoms. So it’s worth spotting them whether you are concerned about mild cognitive impairment or caring for someone with full-blown Alzheimer’s dementia.

Every older adult and family should know how to optimize brain function. Avoiding problem medications — or at least using them judiciously and in the lowest doses necessary — is key to this.

And don’t give anyone a pass when they say “Oh, I’ve always taken this drug.” Younger and healthier brains experience less dysfunction from these drugs. That’s because a younger brain has more processing power and is more resilient. So drugs that aren’t such problems earlier in life often have more impact later in life. Just because you took a drug in your youth or middle years doesn’t mean it’s harmless to continue once you are older.

You should also know that most of these drugs affect balance, and may increase fall risk. So there’s a double benefit in identifying them, and minimizing them.

Below, I share the most commonly used drugs that you should look out for if you are worried about memory loss.

Featured Download: Get my free list of medications that can affect memory and thinking in aging adults. This handy PDF includes all the medications I usually check for. Click here to download.

The Four Most Commonly Used Types of Medications That Dampen Brain Function

[Read more…]

Age-Related Hearing Loss (Presbycusis):
What to Know & What to Do

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Have you noticed that an older relative seems to be having trouble hearing you at times?

Or perhaps you’ve realized that sometimes YOU are the one saying “What?”

These situations are extremely common. Sometimes the issue is that one is trying to communicate in a noisy place and there is no need for concern.

But in many cases, these kinds of issues can indicate that an older person (or even a middle-aged person) is being affected by age-related hearing loss. (The medical term is “presbycusis”)

You probably already know this: chronic hearing impairment becomes very common as one gets older. The National Institute on Aging reports that one in three adults aged 65-74 has hearing loss, and nearly half of those aged 75+ have difficulty with hearing.

Hearing loss also affects a significant number of people earlier in life. A 2011 study on the epidemiology of hearing loss documented hearing loss in 11% of participants aged 45-54, and 25% of those aged 55-64.

In short, research confirms that quite a lot of people experience hearing loss. But sadly, research also confirms that hearing loss is often under-recognized and inadequately addressed.

This is a major public health issue, for older adults and also for the many middle-aged adults experiencing hearing loss. At this point, we know quite a lot about: [Read more…]

How You Can Help Someone Stop Ativan

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Have you heard of Ativan (generic name lorazepam), and of the risks of benzodiazepines drugs in older adults? Is an older person you care for taking prescription medication for sleep, anxiety, or “nerves”?

Would you like an easy, practical tool to help someone stop a drug whose risks often outweigh the benefits?

If so, I have good news: a wonderful patient education tool has been created by a well-respected expert in geriatrics, Dr. Cara Tannenbaum. Best of all, a randomized trial has proved that this tool works.

As in, 62% older adults who received this tool — a brochure with a quiz followed by key information — discussed stopping the medication with a doctor or pharmacist, and 27% were successful in discontinuing their benzodiazepine. The brochure includes a handy illustrated guide on slowly and safely weaning a person off these habit-forming drugs.

This is big news because although experts widely agree that long-term benzodiazepine use should be avoided in older adults, getting doctors and patients to work together to stop has been tough. It is, after all, generally easier to start a tranquilizer than to stop it!

But through a patient education brochure, Dr. Tannenbaum’s team was able to make this tricky process much more doable for older adults, their families, and their doctors.

Why it’s important to try to stop lorazepam & other benzodiazepines

[Read more…]

6 Ways that Memory & Thinking Change with Normal Aging (& What to Do About This)

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

It’s annoying but unfortunately true: most parts of the body work less well as one gets older and older.

This is even true of the brain, which is part of why it becomes more common to experience a “tip of the tongue” moment as one gets older.

Such age-related changes in how the brain manages memory, thinking, and other mental processes are called “cognitive aging.”

Understanding how aging changes cognitive function is important. It can help you understand what to anticipate when it comes to your own aging. It can also help families better understand the changes they’re noticing in an older person, and whether those are out of the ordinary or not.

Since I’ve often written about changes in thinking that are abnormal and concerning in older adults, I thought it might be helpful for me to write an article outlining what is normal and to be expected.

Specifically, I’ll cover:

How cognitive aging differs from other diseases and conditions that affect memory and thinking
6 ways that memory and thinking change with aging
The difference between crystallized and fluid intelligence
How to tell cognitive aging apart from more worrisome changes, such as mild cognitive impairment and signs of Alzheimer’s and related dementia
Practical takeaways and what you can do

[Read more…]

How to Address Cardiovascular Risk Factors for Better Brain Health:
12 Risks to Know & 5 Things to Do

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

A while back, I wrote an article on cerebral small vessel disease, a very common condition in which the small blood vessels of the brain develop signs of damage.

If you’re an older adult and you’ve had an MRI done of your brain, chances are pretty good that your scan showed signs of at least mild signs of this condition; one study of older adults aged 60-90 found that 95% of them showed signs of these white matter changes.

These are basically like teensy strokes in the brain. Most are un-noticeable to people, but if you have enough of them, you can certainly develop symptoms, such as cognitive impairment, balance problems, or even vascular dementia.

To date, the cerebral small vessel disease article has generated over 100 comments and questions from readers. A common theme was this: “My MRI shows signs of this condition. What can I do?”

As I explain in the article and the comments, the first thing to do is to work closely with your doctors to understand what is the likely cause of the damage to the brain’s small blood vessels.

Now, when you do this, you may well find that your doctor just shrugs, or waves off the question.

That’s because in most people, cerebral small vessel disease is thought to be in large part a result of atherosclerosis (more on this term below) affecting the smaller arteries of the brain. And atherosclerosis affects just about everyone as they age, because it’s related to many basic cardiovascular risk factors that become very common in late-life.

So in many cases, asking the doctor why you have signs of cerebral small vessel disease may be like asking why you might have high blood pressure, or arthritis. These are common conditions and they are usually due to medically mundane causes and risk factors, including sub-optimal “lifestyle” behaviors and the general “wear and tear” on the body that is associated with aging.

(However, in some people, damage to the small vessels in the brain may be related to one or more particular medical conditions. Younger people, in particular, seem more likely to have a particular condition or risk factor that may be causing most of the damage.)

Whether you are younger (i.e under age 60) or older, always start by asking your doctors what they think are the most likely causes for any cerebral small vessel disease, and what they recommend you do to slow the progression.

And for most people, the main advice will be this: evaluate and address your cardiovascular risk factors.

“Vascular,” as you probably already know, means “blood vessels.” And blood vessels are critical to the function of every part of the body, because blood vessels are what brings oxygen and nutrients to every cell in the body. They also carry away waste products and toxins. So, blood vessel health is key to brain health.

This article will help you better understand how to address blood vessel health. Specifically, I’ll cover:

[Read more…]

Cerebral Small Vessel Disease:
What to Know & What to Do

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

Signs of cerebral small vessel disease. From Inzitari et al, BMJ. 2009 Jul 6;339:b2477. doi: 10.1136/bmj.b2477

This article is about the most common aging brain problem that you may have never heard of.

While leading a fall prevention workshop a few years ago, I mentioned that an older person’s walking and balance problems might well be related to the presence of “small vessel ischemic changes” in the brain, which are very common in aging adults. (This is also called “white matter disease.”)

This led to an immediate flurry of follow-up questions. What exactly are these changes, people wanted to know. Do they happen to every older adult? Is this the same as vascular dementia? And how they can best help their parents with cognitive decline?

Well, these types of brain lesions don’t happen to every older person, but they do happen to the vast majority of them. In fact, one study of older adults aged 60-90 found that 95% of them showed signs of these changes on brain MRI.

In other words, if your older parent ever gets an MRI of the head, he or she will probably show some signs of these changes.

So this is a condition that older adults and families should know about. Furthermore, these changes have been associated with problems of consequence to older adults, including:

Cognitive decline,
Problems with walking or balance,
Strokes,
Vascular dementia.

Now, perhaps the best technical term for what I’m referring to is “cerebral small vessel disease.” But many other synonyms are used by the medical community — especially in radiology reports. They include:

White matter disease
Small vessel ischemic disease
Brain lesions
Periventricular white matter changes
Perivascular chronic ischemic white matter disease of aging
Chronic microvascular changes, chronic microvascular ischemic changes
Chronic microvascular ischemia
White matter hyperintensities
Age-related white matter changes
Leukoaraiosis

In this post, I will explain what all older adults and their families should know about this extremely common condition related to the brain health of older adults.

In particular, I’ll address the following frequently asked questions:

What is cerebral small vessel disease (SVD)?
What are the symptoms of cerebral SVD?
How is cerebral small vessel disease related to vascular dementia and cerebrovascular accidents?
What causes cerebral SVD?
How can cerebral SVD be treated or prevented?
Should you request an MRI if you’re concerned about cerebral SVD?

I will also address what you can do, if you are concerned about cerebral SVD for yourself or an older loved one.

[Read more…]

Hospital Delirium: What to know & do

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH

“How should delirium be managed in the hospital?”

This question came up during a Q & A session, as we were discussing the Choosing Wisely recommendation to avoid tying down older adults who become confused during a hospitalization.

Delirium is a common and very important problem for all older adults in the hospital. It doesn’t just happen to people with Alzheimer’s or a dementia diagnosis. (And, it’s not the same thing.)

But many family caregivers have hardly heard of hospital delirium. This is too bad, since there’s a lot that family caregivers can do to prevent this serious complication, or at least prevent an older loved one from being physically restrained if delirium does occur.

In this post, I’ll review what older adults and families absolutely should know about hospital delirium. And, we’ll cover some of the things you can do if it happens to your loved one.

[Read more…]