12 Questions For Better Brain Health

We usually preface our “Expert Insights” pieces with a nice banner that has a stylish tall cutout that allows us to put a photo of the expert in. Today we’re not doing that, because for today’s camera-shy expert, we could only find one photo, and it’s a small, grainy, square headshot that looks like it was taken some decades ago, and would not fit our template at all. You can see it here, though!

In any case, Dr. Linda Selwa is a neurologist and neurophysiologist with nearly 40 years of professional experience.

The right questions to ask

As a neurologist, she found that one of the problems that results in delayed interventions (and thus, lower efficacy of those interventions) is that people don’t know there’s anything to worry about until a degenerative brain condition has degenerated past a certain point. With that in mind, she bids us ask ourselves the following questions, and discuss them with our primary healthcare providers as appropriate:

1. Sleep: Are you able to get sufficient sleep to feel rested?
2. Affect, mood and mental health: Do you have concerns about your mood, anxiety, or stress?
3. Food, diet and supplements: Do you have concerns about getting enough or healthy enough food, or have any questions about supplements or vitamins?
4. Exercise: Do you find ways to fit physical exercise into your life?
5. Supportive social interactions: Do you have regular contact with close friends or family, and do you have enough support from people?
6. Trauma avoidance: Do you wear seatbelts and helmets, and use car seats for children?
7. Blood pressure: Have you had problems with high blood pressure at home or at doctor visits, or do you have any concerns about blood pressure treatment or getting a blood pressure cuff at home?
8. Risks, genetic and metabolic factors: Do you have trouble controlling blood sugar or cholesterol? Is there a neurological disease that runs in your family?
9. Affordability and adherence: Do you have any trouble with the cost of your medicines?
10. Infection: Are you up to date on vaccines, and do you have enough information about those vaccines?
11. Negative exposures: Do you smoke, drink more than one to two drinks per day, or use non-prescription drugs? Do you drink well water, or live in an area with known air or water pollution?
12. Social and structural determinants of health: Do you have concerns about keeping housing, having transportation, having access to care and medical insurance, or being physically or emotionally safe from harm?

You will note that some of these are well-known (to 10almonds readers, at least!) risk factors for cognitive decline, but others are more about systemic and/or environmental considerations, things that don’t directly pertain to brain health, but can have a big impact on it anyway.

About “concerns”: in the case of those questions that ask “do you have concerns about…?”, and you’re not sure, then yes, you do indeed have concerns.

About “trouble”: as for these kinds of health-related questionnaires in general, if a question asks you “do you have trouble with…?” and your answer is something like “no, because I have a special way of dealing with that problem” then the answer for the purposes of the questionnaire is yes, you do indeed have trouble.

Note that you can “have trouble with” something that you simultaneously “have under control”—just as a person can have no trouble at all with something that they leave very much out of control.

Further explanation on each of the questions

If you’re wondering what is meant by any of these, or what counts, or why the question is even being asked, then we recommend you check out Dr. Selwa et al’s recently-published paper, then all is explained in there, in surprisingly easy-to-read fashion:

Emerging Issues In Neurology: The Neurologist’s Role in Promoting Brain Health

If you scroll past the abstract, introduction, and disclaimers, then you’ll be straight into the tables of information about the above 12 factors.

Want to be even more proactive?

Check out:

How To Reduce Your Alzheimer’s Risk

Take care!