This is the 94th instalment in a series on dementia, including the research into its causes and treatment, advice for carers, and stories of hope.
Staying out of the hospital is one of the quiet secrets of “super-agers”, older adults whose memories remain as sharp as people decades younger. While strong bones protect us from fall-related fractures that trigger age-accelerating hospital stays, their connection to brain health runs much deeper than mere physical protection.
This deeper connection was hinted at as early as the mid-1800s, when French pathologist Jean-Martin Charcot described patients with a condition called tabes dorsalis, a complication of untreated syphilis. Their joints were collapsing, their bones and soft tissues impaired. Charcot believed that it was damage to the brain and spinal cord that was causing this – not bone disease.
Charcot is credited with describing the brain’s vascular system and is, as a result, sometimes referred to as the founder of neurology. But colleagues dismissed his theory.
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