Alzheimer’s and Brain Awareness Month is observed in June as an opportunity to spread information about and focus on Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. It is also a time to remind us that brain health is a critical piece of our overall health, underlying our ability to communicate, make decisions, problem-solve and live a productive and useful life.
Worldwide, more than 55 million people are living with Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. Whatever your age, it is crucial to get familiar with brain health and learn what steps you can take if you or someone you love has memory concerns.
On June 19th at 2pm, in our program entitled Understanding Memory Loss, presented by the organization Alzheimer’s New Jersey, come and learn about the difference between normal age-related memory changes and abnormal changes that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, including some of the common warning signs. You will explore what dementia is, what causes it and whether it is a reversible condition of a neurodegenerative disease.
The presentation also reviews what should be done and the importance of receiving a thorough diagnostic evaluation when memory concerns or symptoms first arise. Risk factors for cognitive decline and brain health strategies that will help to prevent or delay the onset of decline in brain health will be reviewed. Advances in treatment of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia will be touched upon as well. You can register for this session here.
Here are some recently published books/ebooks and online courses available with your Livingston Library card, on the fascinating subject of the brain and its working, on Alzheimer’s disease and dementia (including memoirs), memory, and ways to maintain an active and agile brain.
The Ageless Brain : How to Sharpen and Protect your Mind for a Lifetime by Dale E. Bredesen
Dr. Bredesen will share the latest, cutting-edge science on neurodegeneration, including how misunderstandings of the disease have hindered our efforts to treat it, as well as a preventative program that readers of all ages can put into practice to optimize their cognitive health now and sustain it for years to come.
The Balanced Brain : The Science of Mental Health by Camilla Nord
Nord explains how our brain constructs our sense of mental health–actively striving to maintain balance in response to our changing circumstances. While a mentally healthy brain deals well with life’s turbulence, poor mental health results when the brain struggles with disruption. But just what is the brain trying to balance? Nord describes the foundations of mental health in the brain–from the neurobiology of pleasure, pain and desire to the role of mood-mediating chemicals like dopamine, serotonin and opioids. She then pivots to interventions, revealing how antidepressants, placebos and even recreational drugs work; how psychotherapy changes brain chemistry; and how the brain and body interact to make us feel physically (as well as mentally) healthy.
Change Your Brain Every Day: Simple Daily Practices to Strengthen Your Mind, Memory, Moods, Focus, Energy, Habits, and Relationships by Daniel G. Amen
Psychiatrist and clinical neuroscientist Amen, MD, draws on over 40 years’ clinical practice with tens of thousands of patients to give you the most effective daily habits he has seen that can help you improve your brain, master your mind, boost your memory, and make you feel happier, healthier, and more connected to those you love.
Dementia Prevention : Using Your Head to Save Your Brain by Emily Clionsky
Severe memory loss and dementia are not inevitable parts of aging. Science now shows that you can make changes, no matter your age, to protect your brain. Join the authors as they guide you through a science-based tour of dementia, including how your brain works and how its function is affected by everything from blood circulation and blood pressure to sugar levels, medications, vision, and hearing.
Healing the Modern Brain : Nine Tenets to Build Mental Fitness and Revitalize Your Mind by Drew Ramsey
A doctor presents a holistic approach to mental fitness, combining science and clinical practice to help nurture mental health and heal conditions like depression and anxiety amidst the challenges of modern life.
High-Octane Brain : 5 Science-Based Steps to Sharpen Your Memory and Reduce Your Risk of Alzheimer’s by Michelle Braun & Karen Postal
Neuropsychologist Dr. Braun inspires you to make lasting improvements by explaining the truth about brain health and providing expert guidance through the maze of conflicting media advice on supplements, brain games, nutrition, and exercise. Packed with valuable tips you can implement immediately to minimize common “brain blips,” exercises to boost your memory within minutes, and inspiring insights from nine High-Octane Brain role models ages 44 to 103.
How the Mind Changed : a Human History of Our Evolving Brain by Joseph Jebelli
This definitive account of how the human brain has evolved explores the development of memory, language, consciousness, intelligence, neurodiversity, and emotions and examines what the future may hold for our brains.
How to Build a Healthy Brain : Reduce Stress, Anxiety and Depression and Future-Proof Your Brain by Kimberly Wilson
A groundbreaking science-based guide to protecting your brain health for the long term. Wilson draws on the latest research to give practical, holistic advice on how you can protect your brain health by making simple lifestyle choices.
A Molecule Away from Madness : Tales of the Hijacked Brain by Sara Manning Peskin
A neurologist regales readers with extraordinary stories of the brain under siege. Our brains are the most complex machines known to humankind, but they have an Achilles heel: The very molecules that allow us to exist can also sabotage our minds. Here are true accounts of unruly molecules and the diseases that form in their wake, from total loss of inhibitions to florid psychosis to compulsive lying. Cognitive neurologist Sara Manning Peskin demystifies the most curious neurological phenomena through the perspective of patients, researchers, and science.
My Father’s Brain : Life in the Shadow of Alzheimer’s by Sandeep Jauhar
A doctor’s memoir about his father’s experience of dementia, and an overview of the history of and latest findings on the disease.
The Official MIND Diet : A Scientifically Based Program to Lose Weight and Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease by Martha Clare Morris
The creator of the MIND diet, which is backed by scientists, doctors and organizations such as the Alzheimer’s Association and AARP, offers this practical, day-by-day guide to eating for weight loss, vitality and a lifetime of optimal cognitive function.
Travelers to Unimaginable Lands: Stories of Dementia, the Caregiver, and the Human Brain by Dasha Kiper
These compelling case histories meld science and storytelling to illuminate the complex relationship between the mind of someone with dementia and the mind of the person caring for them. After getting a master’s degree in clinical psychology, Kiper became the live-in caregiver for a Holocaust survivor with Alzheimer’s disease. For a year, she endured the emotional strain of looking after a person whose condition disrupts the rules of time, order, and continuity. Inspired by her own experience and her work counseling caregivers in the subsequent decade, Kiper offers an entirely new way to understand the symbiotic relationship between patients and those tending to them.
The Upgrade : How the Female Brain Gets Stronger and Better in Midlife and Beyond by Louann Brizandine
Dr. Brizandine explains how a woman’s brain gets “upgraded” in midlife, inspiring and guiding women to unlock their full potential. She has a message that is nothing short of revolutionary: in the time of life typically known as menopause, women’s brains are reshaped, for the better, in a way that creates new power, a bracing clarity, and a laser-like sense of purpose if you know how to seize it. With guidance for navigating the perimenopausal and menopausal storm while it lasts, and actionable, science-backed steps for preserving brain health for the rest of your life, this is a stunning roadmap, told through intimate stories, to a new brain state and its incredible possibilities.
The Weight of Nature : How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains by Clayton Page Aldern
Based on six years of research, award-winning journalist and trained neuroscientist Clayton Page Aldern synthesizes the emerging neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics of climate change and brain health. More heat means it is harder to think straight and solve problems. It influences serotonin release, which in turn increases the chance of impulsive violence. Air pollution from wildfires and smokestacks affects everything from sleeplessness to baseball umpires’ error rates. Immigration judges are more likely to reject asylum applications on hotter days. And these kinds of effects are not easily medicated, since certain drugs we might look to just aren’t as effective at higher temperatures. Heatwaves and hurricanes can wear on memory, language, and pain systems. Wildfires seed PTSD. And climate-fueled ecosystem changes extend the reach of brain-disease carriers like the mosquitos of cerebral-malaria fame, brain-eating amoebae, and the bats that brought us the mental fog of long Covid.
Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory’s Power to Hold on to What Matters by Charan Ranganath
Pioneering neuroscientist and psychologist Ranganath radically reframes the way we think about the everyday act of remembering. Combining accessible language with cutting-edge research, he reveals the surprising ways our brains record the past and how we use that information to understand who we are in the present, and to imagine and plan for the future. Memory, Dr. Ranganath shows, is a highly transformative force that shapes how we experience the world in often invisible and sometimes destructive ways. Knowing this can help us with daily remembering tasks, like finding our keys, and with the challenge of memory loss as we age.
Your Stone Age Brain in the Screen Age : Coping with Digital Distraction and Sensory Overload by Richard E. Cytowic
An award winning neurologist considers the effect of social media and digital devices on our brains, especially our ability to pay attention.
Online Courses
Certificate in Brain Health from Gale Courses
In this innovative course, you’ll gain insights into the amazing brain and learn how to support health and happiness through lifestyle choices that impact this remarkable organ.
Universal Class has 2 related courses: Memory Improvement and Alzheimer’s Disease 101
—Archana, Adult Services & Acquisitions Librarian