Err on the Side of Kindness

Err on the side of kindness.  Not a bad motto to live by.  Kindness promotes positive relationships with others, although the notion still persists among many individuals that kindness is a sign of weakness.  

According to the philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, kindness and love are the most curative agents in human relationships.  The 14th Dalai Lama, Tensin Gyatso, once wrote that his religion is kindness. Robert Louis Stevenson considered that kindness is the essence of love.

D.

Another Early Warning Sign of Alzheimer's Disease

Lead author of a new study, Alan Castel, assistant professor of psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, believes that one of the first signs that Alzheimer’s disease may be developing is:  a failure to control attention.

Research published in the May 2009 issue of the journal “Neuropsychology”, indicates that memory can be a limited resource and as we get older, we need to be more selective in focusing on what the important things are that need to be remembered while letting less important things slide away from our working – day to day – memory.  Healthy older adults become more selective in what they want to remember as they age, and focus their attention away from matters they deem less important.  According to Castel, the ability to be selective likely declines in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.

The study in question recruited three groups of individuals:  group one consisted of 109 healthy adults with an average age of slightly less than 75.  Sixty-eight of this group’s participants were women.  Group two consisted of 54 older adults with very mild Alzheimer’s disease, who were functioning fine from day to day.  Twenty-two of these participants were female, with an average age of slightly less than 76.  The third group consisted of 35 young adults.  The average age of this group was 19.

Words displayed on a screen at one second intervals were given low to high point values.  At the end of the word presentation, each participant was given 30 seconds to recall the words (which were all common words), and told to focus on the words that had been assigned a higher value in order to maximize the scores. 

The young adults were selective in which words they did and did not recall.  They remembered more of the high-value words and forgot more of the low-value words.

The healthy older adults remembered fewer words, but were equally selective in what they did remember – remembering more of the words of higher value than the words of lower value. Short term memory capacity declines with age, so the fact that this group remembered fewer words than the younger group did was not surprising to the researchers.

The participants with mild Alzheimer’s disease recalled very few words and their ability to be selective in order to maximize their scores was worse.

As we age, memory can become a very limited resource over time, so focus on the few important things that you need to remember from time to time.  For instance, if you are travelling to another city to attend a wedding, ensure that you have your travel documents and all the medications you might need for the duration of your trip.  Perhaps your favourite outfit and the wedding gift are to be remembered, too.  Anything else you may forget to pack can likely be picked up at the destination.

And, as a final note, perhaps not salient to this study, but good in terms of practical day to day functioning:  remember to make lists and consult them as required.

D.

(1)  "Early Alzheimer’s: Not Remembering What is Important to Remember", June 28, 2009, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090625152933.htm

Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Thickness of the Brain's Cortex

The rate of change in the thickness of the brain’s cortex is an important factor associated with a person’s change in the intelligence quotient, more popularly known as IQ.  For decades, it was a commonly held belief that IQ remains more or less constant over time, so that your childhood IQ is pretty well what you have for life.

According to a comprehensive study by scientists at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, at McGill University, and at the McGill University Health Centre, (all of which are located in Montreal, Quebec) as well as by scientists from four other countries, IQ varies over time according to the thickness of the brain’s cortex.

The cortex is the thin, outermost layer of the brain’s nerve cell tissue.  It usually measures just a few millimetres in thickness.  It contains nerve cell bodies and is critical for cognitive functions such as perception, language, memory and consciousness.

It appears that the cortex begins to thin around the age of six or seven as part of the normal process of aging. The study in question here, led by Professor Sherif Karama of McGill University, and his colleagues, involved following 188 children and adolescents over a period of two years. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the young people was conducted at six sites across the United States. This study is the first to show the association between cortical thickness and development as it relates to full scale IQ. It found that within a relatively short period of two years:  “people with a significant increase in IQ did not have the expected cortical thinning;  people whose IQ stayed the same had the normal expected cortical thinning;  people with a significant decrease in IQ had exaggerated cortical thinning.” (1)

The reasons behind the findings remain unclear. Some of the developmental changes may be genetically pre-determined, or other factors such as nutrition and education may be at play.  The changes could also be due to a combination of these or include other unconsidered factors.

D.

(1) “Link Between IQ and Brain Cortex Confirmed By New Evidence”, http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1113086884, March 2014.

Interval Training for Brain Health

Studies confirm that interval training helps improve and maintain good blood flow and delivery of nutrients to the brain. This helps, in turn, to improve and maintain cognitive functioning. This intense type of training - while vigorous - can be accomplished without a huge commitment of time. Interval training twice per week, for about thirty minutes, will suffice. Three times a week, however, is even better. In order to maintain an adequate level of intensity during the interval training session, use of a treadmill, elliptical trainer, or stationary bike is recommended, although I imagine that other methods such as outdoor sprinting would work just as well. Many people don't enjoy working out in a gym. Many do not have the means or the room for large pieces of exercise equipment. A two to three minute warm-up is recommended at the outset of the session, followed by eight, 30-second bursts of high intensity exercise, with 90 seconds of much lower intensity output between each of the eight bursts. Warm down for three to five minutes at the end of the session. Please consult your physician, however, before increasing the intensity of, or changing the nature of, any exercise regimen.

D.

Kale and the Prevention of Cognitive Decline

"Leslie Beck's Longevity Diet" is full of information with respect to the power of food to slow down the aging process. One of the so-called power foods she mentions is kale. After outlining numerous other health benefits like vision preservation and anti-cancer properties, Ms. Beck zeroes in on kale's ability to slow the rate of cognitive decline.

Among other things, kale contains a fair amount of vitamin E and manganese. Vitamin E is thought to shield brain cell membranes from free radical damage. The brain is especially vulnerable to free radical damage due to its high demand for oxygen, its great number of easily oxidized cell membranes and its somewhat weak antioxidant defences. Manganese is a trace mineral that is a crucial component of superoxide dismultase, an enzyme which acts as an antioxidant. "Superoxide dismultase is found exclusively inside the mitochondria, or energy factory, of body cells, where it protects against damage from free radicals formed during energy production." (1)

Kale is best ingested in cooked form in order to ensure that the oxalates present in the kale can be weakened in their capacity to interfere with the absorption of calcium which is also present. Try it steamed, in soups, and in stir-fries.

D.

(1) Beck, Leslie and Gelok, Michelle, "Leslie Beck's Longevity Diet", Penguin Group (Canada), Toronto, 2011, p. 84.)

Borderline Personality Disorder

When I was practising law many years ago, I had a client who had been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).  At the time, I wasn't exactly sure what that meant, but I knew that in her case it involved violent outbursts that resulted once in her breaking her 10-year-old son's arm.  Her two boys, one of whom was 14 at the time, were apprehended by the local child protection authorities.  She was a single mother on welfare who was having extreme difficulty coping.

While I was watching a dvd of Gilbert and Sullivan's 'Iolanthe' operetta the other night, a song towards the end of the production made me think of BPD as the fairies were singing to the members of the House of Lords what basically amounted to: "we really can't stand you, but we love you, so don't go"!

BPD is still considered a controversial diagnosis in some circles.  Decades ago, it was used as a 'catch all' classification for conditions which psychiatrists couldn't quite figure out.

As understood today, BPD manifests as significant emotional instability in which a person has a severely distorted self-image that makes him or her feel worthless and fundamentally flawed.  Anger, impulsiveness and frequent mood swings may push others away, even though lasting and loving relationships are desired.  Fear of abandonment is usually a strong underlying issue, and ironically, the behaviour of someone suffering from BPD usually does result in pushing away those who they strongly desire to be in relationship with.

Signs and symptoms of borderline personality disorder may include:

• Impulsive and risky behavior, such as risky driving, unsafe sex, gambling sprees, or illegal drug use
• Awareness of destructive behavior, including self-injury, but usually feeling unable to change it
• Wide mood swings
• Short but intense episodes of anxiety, or depression
• Inappropriate anger and antagonistic behavior, sometimes escalating into physical fights
• Difficulty controlling emotions or impulses
• Suicidal behavior
• Feeling misunderstood, neglected, alone, empty or hopeless
• Fear of being alone
• Feelings of self-hate and self-loathing 
• An insecure, unsure sense of self (self-identity, self-image, sense of self rapidly changes)
• Feelings of not existing or of disappearing; of not being thought of or cared about 
• Tumultuous relationships with shifts to fury and hate over perceived slights/minor misunderstandings
• Tendency to view things in either black or white (not seeing the grey areas of issues).

As with most mental disorders, personality disorders may be inherited, or strongly associated with other mental disorders among family members, environmental factors such as child abuse, neglect or lack of proper attachment to caregivers/loved ones, or brain abnormalities.

Certain medications can help, but ideally should be combined with an effective form of therapy and support.  Certain psychotherapies can go a long way towards nullifying some of the symptoms and teaching better coping strategies.

Dialectical behavior therapy was designed specifically to treat BDP.  This method of counselling (which I just recently began to study for use in my counselling practice) uses a skills-based approach combined with physical and meditation-like exercises which teach how to regulate emotions, tolerate distress/discomfort and improve relationships. Other effective treatments include: cognitive behavioural therapy, mentalization-based therapy, schema-focused therapy, and transference-focused therapy.

To be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, you must exhibit at least five of the signs/symptoms spelled out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).  

• Intense fear of abandonment
• Pattern of unstable relationships
• Unstable self-image or sense of identity
• Impulsive and self-destructive behaviors
• Suicidal behavior or self-injury
• Wide mood swings
• Chronic feelings of emptiness
• Anger-related problems, such as frequently losing one's temper or having physical fights
• Periods of paranoia and loss of contact with reality (1)

A diagnosis of borderline personality disorder is usually made in adults, rather than in children or teenagers because acting out during the younger years is likely a phase that will pass. If it doesn't pass, then BPD may be implicated.  Additionally, substance abuse can cause symptoms which look like BPD, and BPD can cause substance abuse.

D.

(1) www.mayoclinic.com/health/borderline-personality-disorder/DS00442

On Children

How we treat our children (what we say to them, how we listen to them) is ultimately what matters to their healthy emotional development…not what we DO for them. Doing for them is important, especially when they are young, but it is simply not enough. They need to be heard, valued, and respected as thinking and feeling individuals. They need to know and to feel that they matter.

D.