Winter season proves hard, especially for older adults, who, with their growing age, experience a line of disease and an increasing number of medicines to keep them together for living the years ahead.
More than anything, an older adult’s cognitive abilities become questionable once they reach the winter season because several mental illnesses develop in an older individual, specifically during the winter month of the year.
Diseases such as cardiac arrest, stroke, and gastrointestinal illness grip most people during the winter season. But dementia is believed to be one of the health conditions that turn severe on the season, and the severeness is mostly experienced during winters.
Moreover, previously a study was conducted in 2018 that mentioned changing seasons could significantly impact cognition or dementia in older adults. Winters become one of the seasons where the mental abilities of an older individual drop substantially.
Our mind’s ability to function effectively differs from one season to another, and this has primarily been known as Seasonal Affective Disorder. Winter season majorly affects the mental abilities where there have been cases reported and diagnosed with Clinical depression or Schizophrenia, and variation in moods mostly affects people during winter months.
The researchers who developed the study on different cognition abilities during various seasons were from Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the University of Toronto. They also tend to establish that Alzheimer’s disease is a seasonal disorder, especially in older adults. The researchers have mentioned that adults with Alzheimer’s condition must be given proper treatment and management depending on the season and how the disease fluctuates.
How the Cognitive ability differs in Various Season?
As mentioned above about the researchers from Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre who developed a hypothesis that seasons affect dementia more in older adults, the researchers then progressed towards validating the theory. Researchers conducted a study involving data collection from 3,353 older adults in the United States, Canada, and France.
There were two sets of participants; one had been diagnosed with dementia, and the other did not receive a diagnosis. Both these sets of participants were made to run through neuropsychological testing that involved 19 cognitive ability tests.
The tests involved the results that showed signs of protein, which is linked with Alzheimer’s. The final data proved that most of the lower cognitive functioning cases or that of Dementia are reported either during winter or spring season. On average, there is less number of cases reported during summers and spring.
All the participants observed showed signs that winters and spring season leads to cognitive impairment or risk of dementia in older adults. Hence, the conclusion made was that about 31 percent of the participants were likely to receive dementia as a diagnosis during the er months.
Still, it was also dependent on other extraneous factors such as depression, stress, physical activity level, thyroid, and sleep quality controlled by researchers.
How can the study improve diagnosis and Treatment?
The Alzheimer’s disease-linked protein found in older adults known as cerebrospinal fluid happens to be fluctuating in a person as the seasons take their turn. The relevant protein and gene activity made it more explicit that Dementia does occur differently during the winter months.
Moreover, researchers have confirmed and shared their opinion on this study, saying that when it has been established that spring and winters encourage cognitive impairment in an individual, then the diagnosis and treatment mechanism could indeed be improved based on this.
But it is necessary to be aware that the present study involves an extended version and additional observation into the previous research that explains “uncovered seasonal rhythms of gene expression in the human brain,” which is disrupted by dementia.
More follow-up and analysis are required o the present study. The researchers have confidently confirmed that dementia becomes more severe with the colder months. If further research is developed on this statement, a better diagnosis and treatment could be introduced to eradicate the condition once and for all.
