Cognition
Perhaps you don’t feel you think as clearly as you used to, or perhaps you’ve been told that you show signs of “cognitive concern” or “cognitive difficulties”. Cognition covers a wide range of mental processes and can be impacted by numerous conditions, factors, and syndromes. The following articles explore the most commonly experienced symptoms, syndromes, and questions related to human cognition.
Cognition FAQ
It would take a long series of textbooks to outline all of cognition, but here we try to give the basics.
Dementia 101
They get frustrated every time they misplace their keys, put the milk in the cabinet, or walk into a room and have no idea why they went there in the first place. The reality is that Alzheimer’s is unlikely because they remember that they forgot.
Alzheimer’s 101
I very frequently get asked by patients if they might be developing Alzheimer’s. While many doctors seem to think this is a pretty simple question, as a neuropsychiatrist I know that the answer is far more complex. My hope with this post is to give patients and their families a very brief overview of Alzheimer’s, both to help them understand the changes in the diagnosis over time, and why the very rare pure Alzheimer’s disease isn’t as likely as they might think.
The Importance of Sleep
If our culture focused as much on sleep as our myths suggest it should, I probably wouldn’t have any patients. Out of all of the various treatments in psychiatry and neurology, from diet and exercise to supplements and medications, improving sleep is probably the most universal and consistent treatment available to patients, and one of the hardest.
Light Therapy
One of the most vital treatments in medicine is sleep regulation, and one of the most neglected components of sleep management is light management. Our brains evolved with many mechanisms to keep us highly functional during the day. At night, our brains don’t stop but they work even harder.