Knowledge and Awareness about the Connection between Lifestyle and Dementia among Adolescents

Background and Aim: Dementia is a group of symptoms characterized by memory loss, judgemental loss, forgetfulness. Dementia cannot be cured; but can be prevented. There are seven stages of Dementia, no cognitive decline being the first stage to very severe cognitive decline being the seventh stage. Healthy lifestyle is important for lower risk of Dementia. Smoking, consumption of alcohol, negative thinking, depression, stress, anxiety, lack of sleep, unhealthy diet causes Dementia. Diet plays a very important role in prevention of dementia; foods such as red meat, sugar, fatty foods can increase the risk of dementia whereas foods rich in fibres, fruits can reduce the risk of Dementia. The main aim of this study is to assess the knowledge about lifestyle and dementia.

Materials and Methods: This is a cross sectional survey. 121 adolescents of Saveetha Dental College, Chennai participated in the survey which was conducted through Google forms in February 2021. The questionnaire consisted of 19 questions. The data was analyzed with the help of SPSS software and chi-square test was done for the correlation between gender and awareness. Chi-square test was done for the correlation of gender with awareness among the population. ‘p-value’ was calculated and value < 0.05 was considered as significant.

Results: Out of that 62 were females and 59 were males. Females were more aware about healthy lifestyles and its connection with dementia than males. 92.56% of people were aware that physical activity promotes a healthy brain. 69.2% agreed that depression can increase risk of Dementia. Majority of them agreed that physical exercise can promote a healthy brain.

Conclusion: This study revealed that lifestyle is highly associated with dementia among adolescents. Healthy lifestyle leads to lower risk of dementia even if there’s high genetic risk. Females were aware about the diet which is healthy for lower risk of dementia and more smoking affects the memory. However, most of the people were neutral about the relation between BMI and Dementia.