Patty Takawira

Cause it's like a big problem to solve, which I just keeps me going, I think.

Yeah, so this is a great question, and it's, you know, it's like multi-directional, so...

One of the, I don't know, I kind of refer to it as like the biggest bang for your buck for dementia risk reduction is controlling midlife hypertension.

Um, and this, this has been noted in, in the, so in 2020, the Lancet came out with this concept of like the modifiable risk factors.

And then they, another report came out in 2024 that added some additional risk factors that were considered modifiable, but.

Um, yeah, midlife hypertension, controlling hypertension, and then, um, also preventing obesity and diabetes and type two diabetes.

Um, and so of course there's, you know, there's vascular dementia.

So it's not just like you, you're, um, you're getting Alzheimer's disease, but there's other

those other types of dementia, like vascular dementia, that, you know, kind of the heart brain connection is really, really important.

So I think, and then people living with dementia also typically experience multiple chronic conditions and have to manage those as well, which obviously is more complicated when you're experiencing dementia.

And then I would add that

dementia caregivers are also experiencing higher rates of chronic conditions and depression.

And, you know, so there's, there's just a lot to think about with chronic disease and this issue.

Um, I have an analogy for the, for the memories, the short-term long-term memories that you mentioned from, I think I learned this in a dementia friends champion training, but the analogy is like a bookshelf.

So your most resilient, I guess, memories are at the bottom, the sturdy part of the bookshelf.

And those are kind of like the last to go.

So your more short-term memories are kind of at that top less sturdy part.

So thinking about it that way kind of helped it make sense to me.

And then about stigma.

So when we were working on our dementia strategic plan, this is like the importance of community input, because I don't think we would have teased out this nuance without really working with the community to consider kind of our biggest priorities in the state.