Interesting

With one parent having a bit of a Parkinson's scare and another with a bit of an Alzheimer's scare, I've been doing a bit of research into dementia prevention (dementia being the umbrella term for cognitive deterioration-related diseases). The research is iffy and questionable and I don't know if I have the informative background to understand every study I'm reading, but I'll do my best.

Anecdotally, there doesn't seem to be much of a consistent pattern. My father was a senior corporate worker, retaining significant knowledge of the business and financial world through his life, but didn't exercise much until retirement, preferring to watch TV in his spare time. He's the one at risk for Parkinson's. On the other hand, my mother's life was very motor-focused, as she spent her life doing housework. Housework is a tough job and she basically has no real hobbies, preferring to simply read the newspaper in her spare time. She's at risk of Alzheimer's. Neither of my parents drink, smoke, or take drugs, although I heard in his youth my father used to be addicted to sugared drinks.

While my mother attempts to literally slap the illness out of herself (an acupuncture practice, apparently) I've decided to take a more practical view. There are several ideas I have:

• Diet: Would make sense, but we live relatively healthily, and satisfy the MIND diet most of the time. So short of going super hardcore, I'm not sure how I can improve on this. I have also heard that caloric restriction (that is, going on occasional weight loss diets) may be beneficial to preventing dementia, and my parents have not started doing that until in the most recent decade.
• Exercise: Intensive exercise, not just the daily 'ten thousand steps' my father tries to do. Something like 30-60 minutes a day, at least twice a week. Wish I had more time to do this.
• Cognitive development: This is the thing I've been focusing the most on: Reading, board games, video games, etc. The thing is, not everything you read or everything you play necessarily improves brain development, and I've even found some games might be detrimental to cognitive function. So this is pretty complicated and I'm still reading about it.

I've been thinking about turning this into some sort of life goal. Thing is, the medical research itself is still ongoing. It may not be likely I'll ever get around to making a viable solution by the time established causes of dementia-related diseases have been determined.