Recently updated on January 20th, 2026 at 01:20 pm
Dementia is a broad term that describes a series of diseases that can lead to a patient’s cognitive decline. This includes Alzheimer’s disease and Vascular dementia. This means that it can affect your ability to think, remember, reason, and pay attention, among other symptoms of dementia. People with dementia tend to have problems performing simple tasks and interacting with the people around them. Typically, older adults tend to develop dementia as they are more prone to health problems. It is a distressing disease that can affect patients and those around them.
Therefore, you will want to ensure that you can prevent dementia by undertaking certain precautions or following pieces of advice. So, how do you prevent dementia? We will provide you with five dementia prevention methods you should follow if you or your loved ones are at risk of developing it or already showing symptoms.
Recent studies reveal that up to 45% of dementia cases could be prevented by managing 14 modifiable risk factors, including physical inactivity, diabetes, depression, hearing loss, obesity, social isolation, smoking, excessive alcohol use, high blood pressure, head injury, air pollution, low education, vision loss, and high LDL cholesterol. This underscores the importance of a comprehensive, multifaceted approach to dementia prevention.
Without further delay, let’s dive into it.
Tips to Reduce Your Risk Of Dementia
1. Healthy Habits For Seniors to Reduce and Prevent Dementia
While certain risk factors for dementia are unavoidable, it does not mean preventing it is hopeless. This is the case even if it is seniors suffering from dementia symptoms. It has been proven that living a healthy lifestyle by integrating healthy habits can help people who have dementia.
This means you should increase your physical activity and exercise regularly, even if you are a senior. This is because researchers have determined that exercise helps create neurons and neurochemicals in the brain that help with your cognitive functions. It also helps improve your mood and motivation, which can be crucial when trying to recover from your dementia symptoms.
However, this does not mean you do not exceed your limits, especially if you are a senior.
Aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week, as recent research associates this with up to a 20% reduced risk of dementia by promoting cardiovascular health and neurogenesis.
Therefore, you should target an activity that improves your fitness and is suitable for you. In addition, try not to stay seated for too much of the day. This can increase the risk of dementia. Therefore, staying active can go a long way if you’re wondering how to prevent dementia.
2. Avoid certain habits to reduce the risk of dementia
Just as integrating healthy habits is the best way to prevent dementia, so is avoiding bad habits. Various bad habits can worsen your symptoms, which may be habits that you may be hooked on for a while.
For starters, excessive drinking needs to be avoided at all costs. This is because high consumption of alcohol can affect your brain health. It can damage the brain cells and blood vessels while reducing the size of brain tissues. This results in nutrients not reaching your brain, which can lead to deficiencies. As a result, cutting off this habit is essential, especially for people aged 65 or over. If you cannot do so, it is a good idea to start reducing your intake or moving to lower-strength alcoholic drinks.
Similarly, smoking is another habit you want to reduce as it is a risk factor for dementia. It can damage your blood vessels and reduce circulation around the body, including the brain. As a result, you want to stop smoking or
Quit smoking entirely, as cessation is strongly associated with lower dementia incidence, and consider evidence-based nicotine replacement therapies like patches or sprays under medical guidance.
Avoiding these habits is a crucial step to preventing dementia.
3. Implement a healthy diet
A healthy diet is essential to reducing the chance of developing a whole series of health conditions, which includes dementia. Since dementia is affected by other conditions, like heart diseases, strokes, and obesity, eating healthy can help you immensely.
Focus on evidence-based dietary patterns like the Mediterranean or DASH diet, which emphasize whole grains, fruits, vegetables, fish, and healthy fats to control blood pressure, cholesterol, and diabetes—key modifiable risk factors for dementia.
In essence, you are targeting a balanced diet.
Here are some foods that you will want to include:
- Whole grain foods like bread and rice
- Fruits and vegetables
- Pulses
- Fish
- Low-fat dairy foods
- Vegetable and plant oils, like olive oil.
Similarly, there are certain foods that you want to avoid as these can make your dementia symptoms worse. They can either do this directly or lead to conditions that eventually cause dementia. Here are some of them:
- Red meats as these can lead to high blood pressure and cholesterol
- Processed meat as it contains preservatives that can make dementia worse
- High amounts of salt can increase blood pressure and strain blood vessels
- High amounts of sugar or sugary foods can make you gain weight.
A healthy diet also ensures your weight is in control, as obesity is a risk factor for dementia. This is because obesity is a sign that you have bad heart health, damaging blood vessels and reducing blood flow to the brain. Therefore, if you’re wondering what you can do to prevent dementia, eating healthy should be on top of the list. It is crucial, and you should improve your diet as soon as possible.
4. Take Measures to Reduce Depression and Loneliness
Researchers have identified that other reasons why people are likely to develop dementia are depression and loneliness. Depression can speed up how the brain ages, making it more likely to shrink. In addition, they may isolate themselves, which means they are less likely to interact in activities and with other people.
People who have isolated themselves will also feel more lonely, which can affect dementia. After all, humans are social creatures, and the connections we form with other people are vital to our brain health. If we lose these connections, our cognitive activity will decline and increase dementia symptoms. This is why seniors are more likely to develop dementia, as their health problems might prevent them from adequately interacting with society.
Additionally, they may lose their friends and loved ones at this old age, which can further lead to depression and loneliness. This is why it is crucial to make activities accessible and interact with them as much as possible. Some measures you can take include getting them therapy or putting them in a senior home where they can interact with other seniors and participate in activities with others.
Furthermore, fostering a strong sense of purpose through activities like volunteering, learning new skills, or engaging in meaningful hobbies has been shown to reduce cognitive impairment risk by 28%, providing a significant psychological boost alongside social connections.
5. Opting for dementia care
If you are someone who has a loved one who has dementia but does not have the time to provide them with complete care, this is understandable. After all, most of us live busy lives and have responsibilities we need to take care of. As a result, our loved ones suffering from dementia may not get the proper care they need with their symptoms. This is where you can opt for dementia care services that take care of everything for you. Some excellent services like ours can even provide this for you at your home. This ensures that your loved ones can get care in the comfort of their homes. Dementia care services offer comprehensive care that takes care of everything, including:
- Meal Preparation
- Health Monitoring
- Bathing and Grooming
- Incontinence Care
- Fall Prevention
- Companionship
- Health Recovery Services
- Overnight Observation
- Specialized Care and so on.
This is probably the best way to prevent dementia, as your loved one’s care will be in the hands of trained professionals and experienced doctors.
Modern dementia care increasingly integrates technology such as remote health monitoring, wearable devices for early detection of cognitive decline, and smart home sensors for fall prevention, enhancing safety and enabling personalized, proactive care in home settings.
They will know exactly what dementia patients need and will be able to adapt to their needs and changes.
To sum up
Dementia is a distressing collection of diseases that can lead to the cognitive decline of those stricken by it. This can lead to a decrease in their quality of life, affecting their ability to interact with others and the society around them. As such, it is in your best interest to understand what to do to prevent dementia. There are certain risk factors you can’t avoid while others can implement to prevent dementia. We have looked at various ways you can do so, including following certain healthy habits while avoiding unhealthy ones. This will also ensure other conditions that lead to dementia are avoided. In addition, taking measures and opting for dementia care is the best option as it ensures care by professionals and experienced medical doctors. We hope this article proves helpful and enables you or your loved one to prevent dementia. Thank you for reading, and good luck!