Dementia is a serious health challenge, and by some estimates the number of people living with dementia could more than double by 2050. While Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia, other types also affect adults worldwide, causing loss of cognitive functions such as memory, reasoning and judgment. The diseases that cause dementia have long been considered difficult and unrelenting, but recent advances offer hope.

Are there ways you can lower your risk of Alzheimer’s Disease and other dementias? Can they be prevented? Can you live well with dementia? If so, how? This fully revised and updated third edition of Mayo Clinic on Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias provides answers to these important questions and more:

• How do sleeplessness, hearing loss, social isolation, and other risk factors contribute to cognitive decline?


• How can exercise and healthy foods preserve brain function?


• What are the neurological changes that can occur in the brain, and how is normal aging different from aging with dementia?


• How are blood and genetic biomarker tests breaking new ground in diagnosing dementia?


• Why is it increasingly important to identify dementia in its early stages?


• What are the unique signs and symptoms of Lewy body dementia, frontotemporal degeneration, vascular cognitive impairment, and other dementias?


• What are the stages of Alzheimer’s disease?


• Can new and emerging medications slow the progression of Alzheimer’s disease?


• What day-to-day coping strategies can help people live well with dementia?


• How can caregivers care for themselves?