As seniors age, being in tune with their cognition is important when managing their overall health.

Keep Your Brain Active

Keeping our brain active and responsive as we get older is of singular importance to many seniors, but knowing what to do and what to work on to keep our brain going isn’t that simple.

As British philosopher, Emerson Pugh succinctly put it, “If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t.”

Mild Cognitive Impairment

Research has shown that individuals who struggle with mild cognitive impairments are at greater risk of developing Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia. Mild cognitive impairment has a myriad of disorders associated with the root cause, including UTI, diabetes, hypertension, and obesity.

In these cases, it is imperative to treat the associated disorder to promote the resolution of the cognitive impairments. However, even with appropriate medical treatment, impairments do not always resolve as quickly or completely as one would hope.

At this point, a speech-language pathology intervention can become crucial to an individual’s safety and recovery. This is an important part as the interventions for the two can vary greatly, therefore a differential diagnosis by a trained clinician is critical

How Can A Speech-Language Pathologist Help?

A speech-language pathologist can help enhance executive function routines and advanced organizers for everyday tasks such as medication management and organizing calendars & schedules.

Unlike individuals struggling with progressive disorders, an individual with mild cognitive impairment has the potential to restore their cognitive function rather than simply compensate for the deficit.

A trained speech-language pathologist can help guide and direct this restoration of function.

If you have any questions about cognitive development or cognitive impairment, please contact Language Fundamentals today!

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About the author: Michael V. Webb, MS CCC-SLP, Chief Executive Officer of Language Fundamentals. Michael is a graduate from the College of Saint Rose in Albany NY with his Master’s degree in Communication Disorders and more recently earned his Masters of Healthcare Administration from the University of Ohio. He has presented at the American Speech-Language and Hearing Association, the New York Speech-Language-Hearing Association, the New York State Health Facilities Association, as well as the National Convention of State Veterans Homes.