Summary
In this episode of CareLab, hosts Emilia Bourland and Brandy Archie welcome back Dr. Marsha Neville, a cognitive neuroscientist and occupational therapist with over 45 years of experience. The discussion focuses on cognitive health and aging—what constitutes normal cognitive changes versus signs of decline or dementia. Dr. Neville explains the concept of cognitive reserve and emphasizes the importance of exercise, cognitive stimulation, and especially socialization in maintaining brain health. The conversation also covers hormonal influences, hydration, sleep, medication management, and the importance of advocating for one’s own health.
Key Questions Answered
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What are normal cognitive changes as we age?
Normal aging can bring slower processing speed, reduced working memory, and less flexible thinking. These changes don’t necessarily indicate dementia and can often be managed with adjustments and support. -
How can hormonal changes, such as those during menopause or pregnancy, affect cognition?
Hormonal fluctuations can impair memory and cognitive function. These effects are typically temporary and linked to sleep disruptions and emotional regulation, which can also influence brain performance. -
What is cognitive reserve, and how do you build it?
Cognitive reserve refers to the brain’s ability to adapt and maintain function despite aging or damage. It can be strengthened through regular exercise, social interaction, and mentally stimulating activities—especially when combined (e.g., dancing or group games). -
When should someone be concerned about cognitive decline?
If cognitive issues interfere with daily tasks like managing finances or operating appliances—or if procedural memory fades—it could signal dementia. Early evaluation is key for effective intervention. -
How do other health factors like medication, sleep, and hydration affect cognition?
Poor sleep, dehydration, hearing loss, and medication side effects can mimic or worsen cognitive decline. Managing these factors and reviewing medications regularly—especially with pharmacists—can significantly support brain health.
Transcript
Brandy Archie
Hi everybody, welcome to Care Lab.
Emilia Bourland
Hello, welcome, happy Friday, welcome to CareLab. We have an amazing returning guest here with us today. We've got Dr. Marcia Neville. She's been in OT for over 45 years, has a BS in occupational therapy, a master's in applied cognition and neuroscience, and a PhD in cognitive neuroscience. That's right, we have a doctor of cognitive neuroscience, a real life.
Marsha Neville
you
Brandy Archie
you
Brandy Archie
Neuroscience.
Emilia Bourland
neuroscientist here today. Her practice has been in rehab, focusing on people with neurological conditions. She's a professor emeritus at Texas Women's University, where she taught for over 30 years in the School of Occupational Therapy. Full disclosure, she was one of my professors when I was there. She's authored over 20 research papers, published a textbook on rehabilitation for occupational therapists, and edited and authored textbook chapters. Chapters in addition, as if that was not enough,
Dr. Marcia Neville is the author of the discharge planning assessment tool, the DPAT, which is a tool used to promote informed discharge from the hospital. Welcome back, Dr. Neville.
Marsha Neville
Well, I'm happy to be back.
Emilia Bourland
Okay, so normally we do an icebreaker question, but this happened yesterday and it made me think of you. And so I was like, instead of an icebreaker, we're just gonna, we'll just do this. so, and full disclosure, this might not go anywhere, but if it could go anywhere with anyone, it'll probably go somewhere with this particular group. So yesterday, my son and I were sitting out in the backyard.
Brandy Archie
You
Emilia Bourland
And he started talking about this like cool optical illusion that he had learned about in science class. And I was like, well, and it reminded me of the Stroop test. And I was like, I was like, well, have you ever heard of the Stroop test? And he was like, no. And he actually pulled it up on his little Apple watch and did the Stroop test like on his Apple watch. And he thought it was so fascinating. And anyway, it just tickled me and I thought it would tickle you too.
Marsha Neville
Yeah.
Marsha Neville
Yes, it does.
Emilia Bourland
Maybe that wasn't as exciting as I thought it was.
Marsha Neville
Well, it does make me think as you talk about this, I have a six-year-old granddaughter and she just loves to say, Nana, now you know the brain, so tell me about this.
Emilia Bourland
That's so cute.
Marsha Neville
Yeah.
Brandy Archie
So detail oriented these kids.
Marsha Neville
Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. I got her a coloring book. It was a brain coloring book for for children. And I did kind of think it might freak her out a little bit because, you know, it showed the eyeballs and all that kind of stuff. And yeah, I find out the other night when I asked her she wanted to color in it. It does freak her out.
Brandy Archie
It's always like a guess like whether it's gonna do that or not because I have a five-year-old who's into all the details. She will ask me all the questions until she gets to the end and she goes like, okay, that's sufficient answer. Like don't give me no kid answer basically. And so one time she was asking me about the body. I pulled out my Netter Atlas. I know that's old school, but like I still have it and I pulled it out and I showed her and she was like, interesting. And she was not freaked out at all. like, since you know, the inside of the body, she was like, yeah, that's all the questions. So it really depends I think.
Marsha Neville
Yeah.
Marsha Neville
Yeah, we were dissecting the heart of a chicken the other day. And it's just fascinating because you can see the valve, you know, the vessels and and the little cavities and all that. Yeah. Yeah. So.
Emilia Bourland
See, this is like, I purposely, from the moment my children were born, I left all my textbooks, like all my A &P textbooks, like all of that stuff that I found so fascinating. I left it all out there and actually I like put it in their room with their stuff. Not because I expected to read them, obviously, but like because I think it's cool to like have access to knowledge about that kind of thing. And the-
Marsha Neville
Mm-hmm.
Marsha Neville
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
pictures are fascinating and like, my gosh, this is how my body works on the inside. I am just endlessly interested and fascinated in how the human body works. And you know how many times my kids have ever gone, they've never cracked that thing. They've never cracked any of them. To the extent that I have now given up and I've actually, I've removed them and parted ways with some things because I have to, but.
Marsha Neville
you
Brandy Archie
Thank you.
Marsha Neville
Yeah.
Brandy Archie
you
Emilia Bourland
I like for so long I was like, don't you want to look at this? This is how your body works. Isn't it cool? No, they couldn't care less.
Brandy Archie
Couldn't care less. Lungs is working. That's all I need to know.
Emilia Bourland
long as it's working. But he liked the Stroop test. okay, so we have some really interesting things to talk about with you here today. And I believe that the topic that we are planning to cover is all about like cognitive health as we're aging, what cognitive health looks like, what normal cognitive aging looks like, what contributes to decline. So this is such a like rich topic to go into.
Marsha Neville
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
Would you start just by talking a little bit about like, what is normal cognitive aging? What should people actually expect normally?
Marsha Neville
Well, the fact of the matter is just like our bodies, our brains do tend to change as we age. They kind of wrinkled, so to speak. But now as we age, there are cognitive changes that are just normal cognitive changes. One is speed of processing. Older people take longer to process information.
Others are our working memory. And if we think of our working memory, this may not apply to some younger people who no longer have to memorize phone numbers, nor do we memorize phone numbers. But we always think of working memory as being remembering bits of seven things, like a phone number. you know, somebody tells you a phone number, you can remember it and hold it for a period of time. Or it might be telling somebody to we're going to leave in five minutes.
You need to do this, this and this or things like that. That's working memory. It's stuff we're just going to keep in the throw out. We're not trying to store it in any parts of our brain. So working memory tends to go away. Our not go away, but it tends to require more effort to hold things in. using reminders, using a calendar, writing things down, having a timer for things can help.
Brandy Archie
you
Brandy Archie
you
Marsha Neville
those issues. Other things are like flexibility of thinking and problem solving. If anybody's ever had a parent or knows of somebody who's over 60 plus years old, they're not as flexible in their thinking as they used to be. They kind of get, as we say, set in their ways.
Well, there's a reason for that and maybe it's somewhat related to our speed of processing slows down and so we're not as quick at making changes, those kinds of things. Other things are multitasking, doing just one thing at a time. And again, that has to do with our ability to focus and use our working memory. So just decreasing the clutter.
reducing how much if you're talking to somebody who's older, you'll notice that simplifying what you're telling them, making it step by step can help with their processing speeds. And then emotional regulation. How many of us know people who, as they get older, get a little more irritable, maybe are a little more anxious, maybe worry a bit more? These are all
Parts of normal aging. This is not any sign of somebody's got dementia. Now, if somebody has dementia, what you're going to notice is one of the first things is the procedural memory, the remembering how to do tasks that you are used to doing. Operating a microwave, operating the stove, managing the TV as long as you haven't changed your network.
Brandy Archie
.
Marsha Neville
provider and remote and everything else, but just normal day-to-day kinds of things, even using a washer and dryer or the dishwasher. The procedural things we do. It can also be reflected in things like messing up our finances, forgetting to pay bills, paying the bill in the wrong way.
forgetting what services you might need to pay the bills to. So those are indicators early on of somebody with maybe some type of cognitive decline that's not normal.
Brandy Archie
Can I throw like a wrench into this because it's very self-serving of me but I very recently learned that like you can have a fair amount of cognitive changes in pre and during menopause
Marsha Neville
Yes.
Emilia Bourland
Hahaha!
Brandy Archie
And so like, how, how do you, could you tell us anything about like what to expect there? How do you move us not like early onset dementia? Are there ways to separate things? You know, like just asking for a friend.
Emilia Bourland
This is such a, that is such a great question. That is such a great question.
Marsha Neville
So much of that is less related. Well, I can't say it's not related to the brain because it's the hormonal influences. And we know that those hormones are playing havoc, particularly with areas of the brain that deal with emotional regulation, but also the memory. And this is also the case during pregnancy and post pregnancy.
is women start noticing that they forget things, that things that used to be easy for them are no longer easy. So these are all related to those hormonal changes that tend to happen. Also, there's a relationship to sleep. And we know sleep can contribute to our cognitive functioning. And so if you're not sleeping and getting the same rest or the
depth of rest that you got, then those can contribute. And that's the same as we age. If we're not getting the rest, then we're going to suffer from some type of cognitive decline. But you can get it back.
Brandy Archie
you
Emilia Bourland
Okay, okay, let's talk a little bit. I want to hear about that. Also, I just want to like share a real life example here. I knew that I was pregnant with my second son because I was like cognitively impaired. It was like really early, but I was like walking around work. I was working in a sniff and I was walking around and I was like, whoa, I am not on my A game in my brain. I think I'm pregnant. And I was.
Brandy Archie
Emilia Bourland
That's how I knew before anything else. like those hormonal changes are so real and so powerful. I think that's really interesting. But yeah, can you talk about some ways like, how can we get this back? can we the effects of these sort of like normal kind of cognitive aging issues?
Brandy Archie
.
Marsha Neville
So this is interesting and this is.
evidence that's just been developed in the last couple decades. It's really out there now. And it's a concept of what we call cognitive reserve. And I like to correlate it with, we know all about exercise and aerobic exercise, and that if we increase our heart rate, then it helps build this collateral circulation around our heart. That then if we were to have a heart attack or
Brandy Archie
.
Marsha Neville
a blockage or something, we have extra vessels that take over and feed our heart. The same can happen with the brain. And it's been referred to as cognitive reserve. just as we exercise our bodies, we need to exercise our brains. And as we exercise our brains, we build additional networks that if we happen to lose
and have like a stroke or just normal cognitive aging, we have extra highways in our brain that can help with that cognitive processing. So how do you build cognitive reserve? And as an occupational therapist, it couldn't be any more in our face. So.
Brandy Archie
Thank you.
Marsha Neville
The three things that really contribute to cognitive reserve is, we'll just put it out there, exercise. Exercise produces those endorphins, builds up our serotonin, it makes us all feel good. We all know the benefits of exercise as much as we all hate it. Then there is cognitive stimulation.
Brandy Archie
you
Marsha Neville
And then there's socialization. And I'm going to say the most important of those three is socialization is keeping because I really feel like when you socialize, you get cognitive stimulation. And in particular, if you socialize doing some type of
Brandy Archie
Ooh, why are you saying that's the most important?
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Marsha Neville
activity.
So one of the studies that was done is they had groups of people and one just did regular old exercise. Let's do chair yoga today. And then the other group did ballroom dancing and another group didn't do anything. Well, the ballroom dancing group did the most or had the most cognitive improvement. Why?
because they had the socialization along with the cognitive stimulation, because you have to think about what you're doing when you're ballroom dancing. And then you had the exercise along with it. those kinds of things. So all this rage of pickleball, which is making our orthopedic surgeons extremely rich.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
That's exactly what I was going to say!
Brandy Archie
you
Marsha Neville
It's not a bad thing. But when I talk about this with people, they'll say, well, yeah, I do Sudokus. And it's like, well, that's great if you do a Sudoku, but it would be better if you did a Sudoku with friends and socialized while you were doing it. So maybe the socialization isn't the most important, but in some ways, I think it is because as we age, we tend to be more isolated.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
And can I like, oh, sorry, no, no, you're the fount of wisdom. But like, I was just gonna piggyback on that and say, socialization also makes those things more fun. Like at the end of the day, exactly, you only wanna do things if you enjoy them, especially like as you're getting older and you wanna focus on like, I don't wanna do stuff that I hate. I wanna like do things that I love in my life. Socializing makes all of those things so much more fun.
Brandy Archie
So you do it more often.
Marsha Neville
Heheh
Emilia Bourland
and you're getting all of the benefits too, right?
Marsha Neville
Right. Right. I once was at a lecture and this was at the Center for Brain Health in Dallas. And this neuroscientist was speaking and somebody raised their hand and he was talking about this whole concept. And the person said, well, I it's listening. hear I understand that listening to classical music can help with my brain function.
as I'm aging and stuff and the neuroscientist's best line ever I've ever heard is said, well, only if you like classical music. So doing these things just because you read somewhere that working a crossword puzzle is going to help with your cognitive reserve, it's only if you really enjoy those things. So that's a really important component that you bring up, Emmy, is that you have to like what you're doing.
Brandy Archie
Yeah.
Marsha Neville
And the more pleasurable it is, the more you engage in it, the more you're going to want to do it more. You're going to get joy out of it. It's going to release all those happy. Why am I? Yes. Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
Endorphins?
for the win.
Would you talk a little bit more about the role of exercise in this specifically? For exercise to be effective to help prevent cognitive decline, does it have to fall within certain parameters? Do we have to do it for a certain amount of time? Do we have to get our heart rate up to a certain extent? Do we have to do it a certain number of days a week? is there research around any of those things?
Marsha Neville
Well, there's a lot of research around the exercise with the cardiovascular system. So following those guidelines, which the American Heart Association, I believe, is saying 20 minutes getting your heart rate up into that target range, which is, if you want to know, minus your age.
and then take a percentage of it. And what they're really saying is maybe at 60 % and you can get your heart rate up and hold it up there doing things that, chair yoga, chair exercises, moving your arms gets your heart rate up a lot faster than just walking. I have so many friends that say, well, I'm getting my 10,000 steps in, but they're not getting their heart rate up.
Brandy Archie
.
Marsha Neville
there. So you have to get it up enough, but there's the benefit of even moderate exercise in the cognitive aging process.
Brandy Archie
So, okay, I know you tried you try saying tribes because I didn't get it all the way but
I know you're talking to us about like, there's some things that change as we get older, but there's also things that change because we have a process happening like dementia. And so is there a easy way for us to understand like, I shouldn't worry about that. This is a normal change as I get older versus, this is challenging and I should pay specific attention to it. And maybe go see somebody about dealing with having, maybe having dementia or some other thing.
Marsha Neville
I think that's a question a lot of older adults have. And at what point do family members, actually I'm dealing with this a little bit right now in my own family with some concerns about somebody. And I think my humble opinion is if you're concerned, go get it checked out. The earlier detection,
the more informed the treatments can be. There are environmental things that can be done. There are medications now that have been effective. So I say, if you yourself, which is very hard, I'm sure, for people to think about, but if you're seeing it, I think it's worth talking to your doctor.
Brandy Archie
Yeah.
Marsha Neville
and going through some assessments. If you're a family member and approaching this with your family member, that's another, you know, it's very difficult for somebody to tell their spouse or their sibling or somebody that, geez, we're kind of concerned about you, Mary. We might want to talk with the doctor about this because oftentimes the person is in denial or
if they're really having problems, they may not recognize them themselves.
So mentioning this to the doctor, getting some evaluations, but I want to talk a little bit also about other factors that might be contributing to what looks like a cognitive decline that isn't. And we already touched on sleep. And we know that sleep is affected with older adults. So and also the question of sleep apnea.
Brandy Archie
Hmm.
Marsha Neville
with older adults. So is there a sleep issue? Is there a hydration issue? Are they drinking enough food? Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
Wait, wait, hold on. Would you talk more about that? Like how does hydration affecting cognitive performance?
Brandy Archie
Yeah, hydration.
Marsha Neville
Well, one of the things that happens with our taste in our thirst system changes in aging. And so the trigger that tells us we're thirsty and need to drink something declines. And as you notice with older adults, you have to remind them more often than not about fluids.
So if somebody's getting dehydrated, their electrolytes are off, that could cause a decline. It can also cause things like lightheadedness.
And so that's an area you want to look at. then, and I listened to your podcast recently on hearing loss.
Brandy Archie
Yeah.
Emilia Bourland
Ooh, that was a good one, wasn't it?
Marsha Neville
Yes, it was very good. And I love the idea of not only do you give somebody hearing aids, but they need speech therapy after they get their hearing aids because they don't know how to. The brain has adapted to not hearing. And so when you put those hearing aids in, they have the brain has to relearn those circuits.
and you need that exercise and you can't just hand somebody some hearing aids and say, you know, wear these around the house and with people and think that you're going to understand speech again. So we need to understand hearing loss. as as this population ages and we've all had earbuds in our ears and microphones and
Brandy Archie
Mm-hmm.
Marsha Neville
loud music and whatever else loud sounds we're listening to, not to mention those people who have been in the military, who have been shooting rifles and around ballistics, or people who've worked around machinery all their lives and didn't have the ear protection that we now use. All of these people are at risk for hearing loss. In hearing loss, when somebody isn't hearing, they may look a little demented.
They may, you you say, well, you know, mom, told you this. Well, mom didn't hear it. Or what mom heard is something different than what you thought. So all of these things on the background of what can contribute to what looks like cognitive decline is simply environmental. And we can talk about these kinds of modifiable risk factors.
like getting the cognitive stimulation, getting the socialization, but also the health. know, people who have diseases, you know, the diabetes, the heart disease, all of these things can be impacting our brain health. High blood pressure. Too much high blood pressure and you're affecting your brain cells.
Brandy Archie
.
Marsha Neville
poor oxygen if your, if your, O2 saturations are dropping because you have some kind of pulmonary issues. This person needs oxygen. Otherwise, they're killing brain cells.
Brandy Archie
Hmm.
Emilia Bourland
This is all so fascinating and I love the way that you're approaching it from like a really, like a whole health perspective. Like so often, you know, we like to think about things in isolation. We like to think about body parts in isolation, right? And if we're, if when we're thinking about like our vascular system, we only think about our heart and like the blood vessels going to the rest of our bodies. But our brain is an incredibly highly vascularized organ.
Marsha Neville
Yeah.
Brandy Archie
silos.
Marsha Neville
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
And it is, it's hungry for oxygen and nutrients and it needs lots and lots of blood in order to like get it all of the things that it needs because your brain's the most expensive organ that you have in your body in terms of the needs that it has. So when we have all these other issues that are affecting things like blood flow, blood pressure, oxygenation, then often the first thing to suffer, even if we're not thinking about it,
Marsha Neville
Mm-hmm.
Marsha Neville
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
is our brain and our cognitive function.
Brandy Archie
Yeah, because really what we're saying
Marsha Neville
That's exactly right.
Brandy Archie
Yeah, what we're saying is like physical health, like all the triggers of all of our vitals and all the things that we try to measure is brain health, right? Like all that, while we might want to be healthy so our vitals can live a long time, or they're look a certain way, it's really, you need that in order for your brain to work for a long time and to work well for a long time.
Marsha Neville
Mm-hmm.
Marsha Neville
Mm hmm. And the other thing we haven't really talked about is the impact of medication. Medication can be really helpful, but then medication in conjunction with other medications could also be impacting somebody's cognitive functioning.
So having that informed, love, I just recently moved and I now am in a medical practice, my physician's in a medical practice called 55 Plus. And it allows them additional time to spend with their patients, to talk to them. But it also is this comprehensive management of looking at medications and what medication.
As a consumer of healthcare, you need to be keenly aware of when a doctor puts you on a new medication to look at how does this medication impact other medications? And as we age and these things change and we talked about this flexibility and thinking and are people understanding how they need to be taking their medications?
so that they're not interacting in the wrong way. So these are other things that family members and caregivers can be aware of with their family members is monitoring medication changes and are we seeing changes in behaviors? How is this impacting their cognitive functioning?
Emilia Bourland
Do you think it's a good idea for people like, because so often you go see the doctor, maybe it's a new doctor that you haven't seen before, maybe it's a specialist or maybe a new problem comes up and they say, okay, well, let's get you a script for this and this should help. But it's pretty rare that there's like an active review of all of the other medications at the same time, particularly if it's not your GP who is always prescribing everything, who might already be aware.
Marsha Neville
Mm-hmm.
Emilia Bourland
but maybe this new doctor or the specialist, they're not. How important do you think it is for people to say at that moment, that's great, that sounds like a great plan. Before we do that, can we also, I want to make sure we also know all of the other medications I'm on and make sure that this all still is necessary and be an advocate to initiate that conversation right then and there so that you're not having issues later. Like how important is that, do you think?
Brandy Archie
.
Marsha Neville
think it's critical and yet lay people are not used to doing things like that. And it might lend itself to family members to go with a person to the doctor. And this is true for all of us, the and I don't want to make this a stereotype, but older
Brandy Archie
Yeah.
Marsha Neville
people oftentimes in the generation that's still living that's above us was not used to always questioning their doctor.
So I think it behooves us to, yes, go in with your list of medications, say, these are what I'm on. And that's not to say that this specialist is going to actually understand. It's really important to go back to that general practitioner and say, here's new medications. Is this going to work? And I can't speak enough about pharmacists and how
informed pharmacists are of drug interactions and also consulting with your pharmacist.
about changes in your medications.
I've been on the same medication now since I was 18 years old and I love every time I go into the pharmacy and they ask me if I need to consult with the pharmacist in taking this medication.
Brandy Archie
Thank you.
Emilia Bourland
And so often we just say no, right? And maybe we should actually use that opportunity to say yes and get a review. Because to your point, pharmacists are these incredibly underutilized experts in our health care system. They're not just pill dispensers. they're offering you their time and their expertise. And it's not going to cost you anything extra to do that there. So maybe we should all take advantage of that. We actually.
Marsha Neville
Yeah. Yeah.
Marsha Neville
Right.
Brandy Archie
Right.
Marsha Neville
Yes.
Emilia Bourland
listeners, we actually have some great episodes with our sort of like resident pharmacist here on CareLab. Her name is Reshma and you can check those episodes out anytime. She's absolutely fantastic. We need to get Reshma back on here. Again, that just reminded me.
Brandy Archie
We do I'm just thinking the same thing I'm I'm so so okay. I'm so glad for all of the information you're imparting and when I think about like Digesting all of that and like who's gonna have a takeaway from this one of the things I think I try to say all the time But I think because of the culture around Hierarchy and medicine that we don't necessarily do it. Is that like
Marsha Neville
Yes.
Brandy Archie
You are the expert on your body. I'm the expert maybe on how to adapt things. The pharmacist is the expert on how the medications work together. But you, my friend, are the expert on your body. So it's really important that you keep studying and that you listen to what your body is telling you and that if something changes, you should pay attention, especially if you start a new medicine or you're not sleeping well or you know, the things are changing and like, well, medical professionals are excellent at their lane.
It's really ultimately about you, right? And so you've got to be able to give us the feedback back to say like, hey, you started me on this medicine and now I'm feeling like I don't remember as many things. Or I changed what I was eating and now this thing is happening. And like having that back and forth is so important because they can only make recommendations for you based on the information you're getting. And just to feel like, I guess, empowerment, to like pay attention to what your body is doing. Listen to your body.
Marsha Neville
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marsha Neville
Mm-hmm.
Marsha Neville
Yeah, go ahead.
Emilia Bourland
sorry, go ahead. No, no, I was about to hand it back off to you anyway, so go for it.
Marsha Neville
Okay, well, what I was gonna say is so kind of one of the things I want people and it was funny the other day I was out on the golf course and I was playing with a woman and she was 82 years old and she took up golf three years ago and she said something about she forgot, I don't know, she forgot where she put her bag or something like that. She goes, God, my brain, you know, that's what happens when you get old. And I said, well.
Emilia Bourland
you
Brandy Archie
Nice.
Marsha Neville
funny, I'm doing a podcast on that on Friday and, you know, let's talk about cognition and aging and what happens. so we were, she says, well, you know, I like to do Sudokus. I don't know what it is with our generation of Sudokus. But it does remind me of the, the speaker at the Center for Brain Health saying, well, only if you like doing Sudokus.
Brandy Archie
you
Marsha Neville
And I would propose that you do a Sudoku with somebody else or chit chat about it. But what I was explaining to her is the game of golf is a great exercise. Plus we were walking, we were rolling our own bags, we weren't in a cart. And there's so much related to golf. But one of the things I want to say about the exercise is as we age, our bodies do give out.
Brandy Archie
Sure.
Emilia Bourland
Yeah.
Marsha Neville
and we hurt. And some of these exercises, doing burpees is not for a 70 year old person, you know, but they're...
Brandy Archie
I don't know if it's for me.
Emilia Bourland
I was saying the same thing. I'm not doing any burpees. Hard pass.
Marsha Neville
You know, and we have to protect our rotator cuffs and we have to protect our joints and pickleball while it's a wonderful activity. I caution about being too competitive when you get older with those lateral moves to rescue the ball. I speak from experience. But because the last thing we need to do is injure our bodies that then drives us into the hospital, which
Brandy Archie
You
Emilia Bourland
Yeah.
Marsha Neville
then can change and when we can't participate in things. I just got over a tendonitis in my foot and it was the most depressing thing because I couldn't get out and do what I wanted to do, which I really want to do. so those things. So my point being is that don't exercise to a point where you're going to injure yourself. And there's lots of exercise programs now, gentle yoga, things like that, that
again gives you the socialization, gives you some cognitive stimulation along with exercise, but also balance. We can't talk enough about exercises that incorporate balance and aging. So I propose things like the cheerio gas, the balance activities.
Many of your YMCAs and community centers now are doing balance and stretching programs.
So those kinds of things can be really beneficial. And then if you do a book club afterwards because you love to read and talk about books.
Brandy Archie
Then you're getting the cognitive simulation and you're getting the exercise and then you're also getting the socialization which is really what we need. Yeah.
Marsha Neville
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Emilia Bourland
Well, I think we're coming to the end of our time now. Thank you so much for being on another episode. We hope to have you back again. I just wanna, before we wrap up, I wanna say, like again, these like big main takeaways, socialization, exercise that is safe for you and your body to do, and cognitive stimulation, combining those things.
Brandy Archie
Yep.
Emilia Bourland
And if you are having symptoms of cognitive decline, getting it checked out, not assuming it's just because you're getting old so you can get to the bottom of it. Like these are some really, really big takeaways. Dr. Neville, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and your wisdom with us here today. We cannot wait to have you back again. We're gonna force you to do it whether you want to or not. Listeners, if you made it to the end of this episode, then please make sure to like, subscribe.
Marsha Neville
you
Brandy Archie
Ha ha!
Marsha Neville
you
Emilia Bourland
Go back, find our first episode with Dr. Neville. It is also amazing and fascinating. Download that, share it with some folks who also could benefit from it, and we will see you right back here next time on Care Lab. Bye.
Brandy Archie
Bye everybody.
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