These Very Common Daily Habits Could Increase Your Risk Of Dementia, Experts Say

“The number of people with dementia is increasing. I think everyone is aware of that. But it’s increasing in part because the number of people living to a very old age is increasing,” said Henderson.

Most dementia happens in older folks, Henderson added.

But, on the bright side, “if you look at the actual chance of getting dementia at a particular age, it’s actually come down slightly, not a whole lot, but slightly, and it seems to parallel advances in taking care of cardiovascular health,” Henderson said.

There are also now disease-modifying FDA-approved medications for the most common form of dementia, which is Alzheimer’s, said Ellison, who stressed that it’s important to start these medications early on in the disease course.

This makes it important to talk to your doctor if you do notice that you have cognitive challenges such as frequently misplacing items, memory changes that disturb your life or have trouble solving problems.

“It’s so hard not to be afraid of something when most people have someone in their life that has been touched by this disease, and it feels as though your future risk of it … is out of your control. But the things that we’ve talked about, all lifestyle changes that can be done better that are in our control,” said Prather.

Still, there will be people who get types of dementia because of genetics or other unmodifiable risk factors, “and we cannot set up the expectation that they failed to prevent [dementia] through their own actions or choices. That is just not fair,” Prather noted.

“But, for many of us, we can make changes to our lifestyle and know confidently that we’ve done everything that we can to prevent this,” she said.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.