Lifestyle Matters

Some of us have had our brains examined, or as medical professionals would say “scanned.” Once you know the shape your brain is in, you are faced with choices: (1) Eat chocolate bonbons and watch TV or (2) Prioritize brain health. When you hit the age where you are too old to die young, it is important to think about brain health. 

With age, maintaining body and mind should be a top priority. Sometimes all we can do with our bodies is be diligent to think about what still works to compensate for the creaky old age joints or other physical health issues. I consider it as keep on keeping on. 

The Alzheimer’s Association in their “Brain Health in America” section of the Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures encapsule the results of the U.S. Pointer Study on Lifestyle. This clinical trial was the first large-scale study of how lifestyle can protect cognitive health. 

Several years ago, I served on my local Alzheimer’s Association board of directors alongside a researcher who took us to her lab where they were researching brain trauma for the NFL. At the same time, they were researching how a healthy lifestyle could delay the onset of dementia. At that time, she said that lifestyle changes were more promising than medication.

At that time medication could only treat symptoms, but after years of research, two new drugs that are administered at infusion clinics are in stage 3 and 4. In the early stages of Alzheimer’s, these drugs have cleared beta-amyloid from the brains of most participants. Genetic testing is advised before treatment because side effects are more prevalent among those who have two copies of APOE e4 gene, a gene that increases the risk of Alzheimer’s. 

Jim was in a drug trial and his genetic testing showed that he had one copy of APOE e4, and one copy of APOE e3. His risk was slightly elevated, and as it turned out he did not have Alzheimer’s disease, but a different and rare type of dementia. 

We can’t do anything to change our genetic makeup, but with a healthy lifestyle we increase our odds of keeping our brains healthy. 

The four-fold U.S. Pointer “Brain Health Recipe”:

 1. Physical Exercise. We should aspire to 30 minutes of moderate-to-intense aerobic activity four times a week. I don’t think walking my geriatric dog qualifies for this. She moves slower than I do, but my Smart Watch tells me how many steps I take. I keep trying to increase it. Strength and flexibility exercises twice a week help keep muscles from being flabby. I have five-pound weights, in plain sight, but I don’t use them as often as I should. I used my grass trimmer yesterday, and my arms and hands shook for twenty minutes after I came inside. I guess that’s a clue that I need to try harder. 

 2. Health Monitoring. Here’s another place my Smart Watch helps. I can check my blood pressure, oxygen, and heart rate 24/7. With my lung issues, it’s always a good thing to see my oxygen at the optimum level. I weigh myself regularly and that keeps me from piling on the pounds and not noticing until my clothes don’t fit.

3. Nutrition. I could improve my eating habits, but I buy whole grain bread, eat salads (except during lettuce recalls), I use olive oil, and I love grapes, cherries, and other fresh fruits and vegetables. I suppose the biscuits and gravy I made this morning was a definite no-no, but it was the first time I had made that breakfast in almost two years. 

4. Cognitive Exercise. I feel like I’ve aced this one. I am task oriented when it comes to Quick Books, updating our club’s WordPress site, blogging, volunteer work, and practicing my guitar. I work Sudoku puzzles and spend time daily reading fiction and non-fiction. My mind is so busy that I am distracted at times. Yesterday, I carefully measured the cat food and then proceeded to dump it in the dog’s bowl. Yeah, I do that kind of stuff on a daily basis too. 

 By laying it out on this blog post, I can easily see areas for improvement, but optimistically, I think I’m in pretty good shape for the shape I’m in. As my mom used to say, “Every day you wake up in the morning is a good day.” I’ve never had APOE genetic testing, but I just hope I inherited the genetic makeup that my mom had. Even more, I hope that I inherited her love of life, her empathy for others, her wisdom, and a mustard seed’s worth of her faith. 

 Copyright © July 2026 by L. S. Fisher 

 https://earlyonset.blogspot.com

The Game of Life

Under the best of circumstances, I’ve entered the final quarter of the game of life. We all know that the most important quarter in any game is always the last quarter. The final quarter determines whether you lose or win. Everything can change until the final buzzer sounds.

Some players will give up when they fall behind in the score, but other players will give the final push and surge ahead. The team that’s ahead often makes the mistake of resting on their laurels, and at the final buzzer realize they have been bested by the come-back kids.

In the game of life, unfortunately, we don’t know when the final buzzer is going to sound. It could happen at any time, during any quarter of the game.

From my umpteen years of experience, I discovered some undeniable truths. In typical fashion, I’ll offer my unsolicited advice. You know how we all hate unsolicited advice, so if you want to stop reading now, you have my best wishes. 

 1.   Love with your whole heart. Yeah, I know the heart is just a muscle, so this is a figurative expression, but I’m sure you understand what I mean. Love has rules that must be followed. In romantic love make sure the love is mutual. No one appreciates a stalker, and besides when someone is murdered, “it’s always the spouse” is too often the truth. Exception: When your loved one has dementia, you can easily shift into unconditional love.

2.  Wealth is not purchased. The richest people you may know don’t live in the biggest house, drive fancy cars, and spend more in a week than others earn in a year. Riches is what you feel inside, how you know you’ve played your best and didn’t cheat others to do it. When we used to collect money for the Walk to End Alzheimer’s at our “traffic stop” it was easy to notice that the people who gave the most generously were not the ones driving the newest, shiniest cars.

3.  Keep your mind active. I used to say that once I retired, I wouldn’t have to remember so much. Ha! Now, I try to keep my mind on track by allocating different days to different projects. Sometimes, I feel like a juggler with so many balls in the air that I know I’m going to get bonked on the head eventually. Still, I don’t think I’d rather spend my days in a rocking chair watching the cars go by on the highway. I’ve always loved a challenge, but sometimes I put too much pressure on myself, so I take a nap. My mind is always active even when I sleep, and my vivid dreams occasionally offer solutions to problems I didn’t know I had.

4.  Offer grace instead of hate. I’m not easily offended, and most people aren’t if they don’t look for things to make them mad. Some people take everything personally whether it’s meant that way or not. I will offer grace to those who may misspeak and mean no harm. Don’t get me wrong, if someone deliberately insults me (or someone I love}, I’ll let them have it with both barrels (figuratively!). Caregivers know that sometimes they have to be an advocate for their loved ones, and hope that if you lose it, someone will offer you grace.

5. You are not better than or less than. If you think you are better than others, you just need to get over yourself. If you think you are less than, you need to rally your self-esteem with a serious pep talk. When in doubt, remember we all came into this world naked and testing our lungs by screaming, and we all leave this world when our life’s game is finished. You won’t be around to see the final score, but others will be. Make sure that you did yourself justice and played the game well.     

6. Keep a sense of humor. A sense of humor is easy during good times, but humor makes the hard times easier. If you can laugh at yourself, others will laugh with you. When Jim was in the nursing home, some nights were really tough, but other nights, I felt like I’d been dropped into the middle of a sitcom. Most people with dementia often believe they are younger than their years. Since Jim was younger than everyone else, he often caught the eye of the older ladies. One night a woman came into Jim’s room and pointed at him. “He’s my husband, you know.” I told her, “He’s is sure a good-looking guy.” A lady shuffling down the hallway with a walker observed, “He sure is good-looking to be married to a fuzzy haired woman like you!”  

7. Don’t offer or listen to unsolicited advice. Ooops!

 

Copyright © July 2026 by L. S. Fisher

https://earlyonset.blogspot.com

Country Sunshine

 

One of the songs I used to sing at the nursing homes was “Country Sunshine.” This song is in many ways the story of my life. As one of my friends used to say, “You can take the girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the girl.”

I grew up in the Ozark hills where the trees blocked some of the country sunshine. The truest part of the song was how I was happy with the simple things, and I still am.

My brothers spent time on the lake and got to know the locals and summer crowd. I stayed close to home mostly reading, and wandering through the woods.  I could go weeks without seeing anyone unless I went to town with Mom and Dad. In town, we spent time with Grandma and Grandpa and a herd of cousins. On Saturday nights, we often listened to Mom and our uncles playing music or, sometimes, we went to the “picture show.”

I lived in the same house growing up, but Jim’s early life was spent moving from one end of the country to the other. Most of the time, his family lived in rural areas, but sometimes they lived in town. Still, Jim was a country boy, through and through.

After we married, we lived in town in Manhattan KS, Redmond OR, Versailles MO, and Sedalia MO. I was not happy at any of those locations. When we moved to the country after living in Sedalia, I didn’t complain (too much) about how run-down our rentals were.

One winter when we lived in a two-story house heated by propane, the weather was so cold that the propane wouldn’t move through the pipes into the house. Of course, every visitor we had was convinced that the house was haunted, and I refused to think about it. Strange things happened especially when we started moving out.

Jim and I bought some acreage from Jim’s parents, and lived in a mobile home while we built our house. We had never had air-conditioning, but by June, the mobile home was unbearably hot, and we bought a window unit.

When we moved into our house, for the first time, the outside temperature didn’t affect the inside temperature. The house was our comfort zone, and we enjoyed the peace and quiet of country life.

Then, in the mid 1990s, things began to change. Jim’s small memory glitches became more frequent and pronounced. He became eccentric in the way he dressed and acted.

People often think of Alzheimer’s and other dementias as a memory problem, but that is just one of the symptoms. Jim lost the logical thinking skills that meant he could fix anything. One time he got our van running with a piece of wire cut from a rundown fence. During the early stages, I noticed that he tore things apart (the vacuum and VCR) but he couldn’t put them together again. He just looked at the pieces lying in the floor and walked away.

His personality changed, gradually at first, but became more pronounced in time. He was confused and withdrawn. He was compelled to record any shows he watched on TV and watched the same video tapes repeatedly. Always an avid reader, he stopped reading. His collection of Louis L’Amour books and Star Trek books collected dust.

Jim forgot simple things: how to tell left from right, how to button his Levi’s, his birthdate, recognition of people in photographs, and how to behave in public. He became obsessive about stuffing folded paper towels in his shirt/jacket pockets, picking up change (even picked up someone’s tip money at a burger place), wearing his denim jacket in 90-degree weather, and wearing his nametag from Branson from one year to the next.

One of the saddest things that happened was when Jim developed aphasia and became almost completely silent. I missed our conversations so much. I talked to Jim and sometimes he seemed to understand part of it, but I could no longer talk with Jim.

I missed the songs he sang, and eventually, he lost the ability to play his guitar. After Jim was in long-term care, a surgeon amputated a finger on his right hand, which had turned into an “alien limb,” a symptom of corticobasal degeneration (CBD). Although it didn’t make any logical sense, I was glad that it wasn’t on his left hand—his fretting hand.

With hundreds of types of dementia, symptoms vary. The most common kind of dementia is Alzheimer’s disease. The rare type of dementia Jim had was only diagnosed from his brain autopsy. It was important information to have since we had two sons. Unlike early onset Alzheimer’s, CBD does not have a clear heredity pattern.

Throughout the days that we live, we learn to dance in the rain, and welcome the country sunshine on the warmest of days. If we wait for the perfect time, we will miss our best moments. After all, it’s the simple things that make us happy.

 

Copyright © July 2026 by L. S. Fisher

http://earlyonset.blogspot.com

#ENDALZ