Why Tracking Brain Health is Important for Seniors – Featuring Roberto

Discussing care with aging loved ones is never easy. For many, there is the elephant in the room of cognitive decline. After all, someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease every 66 seconds in the United States. Because of this, it is important to track your aging loved one’s cognitive abilities regularly.

When to Start

Cognitive decline can unfortunately impact people of all ages, but is more common in the elderly. 1 in 10 people over the age of 65 are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. Tracking progress at 65 is a good place to start. However, who your loved one is might put them at further risk for dementia. Dementia is much more common in females, with 2 in 3 dementia sufferers being women. Additionally, people of color are at a higher risk. Those of African American decent are about 2 times as likely to develop dementia as older white people. People with a Hispanic background are 1.5 times as likely as older white adults to develop dementia.

How to Track Cognition

Attempting to track your loved one’s cognitive status independently will likely lead to skewed results. It is likely that your own personal bias will impact your observations. Instead we recommend using a tool like Roberto. Roberto examines major components of human brain functioning to provide you with a better understanding of your aging loved one’s cognitive status. Sessions consist of a set of 15 modules that help to establish a cognitive baseline. The modules used for tracking are based directly on human performance testing in psychology, neurology, bioengineering, kinesiology and related fields.

What to do if you suspect a cognitive decline

When you utilize Roberto it will be easy to see when an aging loved one deviates from their established baseline. If you suspect a decline take your loved one to their physician for a more thorough assessment. Roberto is intended to be used as a tool, but not for diagnosis purposes.

If your loved one is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s or dementia take a moment to steady yourself. Alzheimer ’s disease is a terminal illness and should be regarded with the gravity it deserves. After you have had time to process this information, begin to make a plan. Take into consideration the goals and needs of your loved one as they progress through this disease. The more time you give yourself to plan the more options you will have in the future.

Take the initiative to track cognitive health.

Your loved one deserves to have the best available to them when it comes to senior care. Utilize the Roberto app to track their cognitive function and support brain health.

[maxbutton id=”4″ url=”http://www.robertoapp.com/” text=”Download Roberto.” ]