Brain Health

Just as you can take care of your body as you age, you can take care of your brain. This helps reduce the risk of losing your memory or your ability to think clearly and quickly.
The medical world is continually learning more about the connections between brain, behaviour, lifestyle, and body. Read on to learn key facts about brain health and how to keep your brain healthy as you age.
The medical term for thinking, memory, and other mental functions is cognition, or cognitive function. Problems with these abilities is called cognitive impairment. You’ll find these terms used on this website.
Brain Health Facts
Around 45% of people diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment (problems with brain function) get completely better.
Possible causes of cognitive impairment:
- An undiagnosed infection
- An imbalance in your diet
- Changes in digestion that stop you from absorbing vitamins,
- Mild depression
- A stressful life situation or an emotional shock
- An illness such as diabetes
All these can be treated with medication, changes to your lifestyle, or counselling.
Challenges with memory and thinking don’t usually lead to dementia. Studies suggest that only 10% to 15% of people with mild cognitive problems go on to develop dementia.
Dementia is a word for a set of illnesses that affect the brain. These include Alzheimer’s Disease as well as other types. Someone experiencing cognitive problems doesn’t necessarily have dementia.
Everything you do to keep your body healthy helps your brain. When you eat healthy food, you nourish your brain, and when you exercise, your heart gets better at providing your brain with oxygen.
What is Cognitive Frailty?
When someone is having problems with both cognitive and physical health, this might be a condition called cognitive frailty. This condition can be treated.
Typical signs of cognitive frailty:
Cognitive frailty is not the same as Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia. Unlike people with dementia, people with cognitive frailty don’t usually experience significant memory problems.
With cognitive frailty, there is a danger that the poor brain health will make the physical frailty worse and then the physical frailty will further lower brain health. Luckily, with medical care, people with cognitive frailty can often get better.
When you notice signs of cognitive frailty, see your health care provider. They can assess your overall health situation, look for the cause of your challenges, and provide treatment. As a result, both your brain and body can get stronger and healthier.
Keep your Brain Healthy
Use your brain

Playing games, learning, taking on challenges, and solving problems all keep your brain healthy. This works best when you take on something new. Doing a crossword puzzle everyday is effective, but switching from crosswords to Sudoku or a different puzzle every now and then will work your brain harder as you learn new skills.
If you’ve always played piano, start learning guitar, or switch to a new type of music. Meeting new people, visiting new places, or cooking new types of food all support cognitive health.
If you regularly make your brain work hard, you will build up cognitive reserve. This term refers to your brain’s ability to adapt as you age. If you have cognitive reserve, then for instance if you forget a word, your brain will be able to find a similar word to fill in the gap. If a neural pathway—a connection in the brain that helps you think—is damaged, you have lots of extra ones, because you’ve built them over time.
Be physically active
What’s good for your heart is good for your brain. Physical activity helps send blood to your brain and triggers the release of hormones that support cognitive health.
Studies show that when older adults completed a 12-week exercise program, their brains grew in areas related to executive function—the ability to focus, stay disciplined, and function effectively.
You don’t have to do sports or go to the gym. Anything that gets you moving will help.

Take care of your hearing

Studies show a clear connection between taking care of your hearing and cognitive health. Older adults who get their hearing tested regularly and use hearing aids when needed are less likely to have cognitive problems.
Stay socially connected
Loneliness and lack of social stimulation is connected with cognitive decline. See our page on social isolation for ideas and resources to improve your social connections.

Get your medications reviewed

Older adults who take many medications are more at risk for cognitive decline, as well as other health challenges like falls, depression, and digestive problems. This doesn’t mean you should stop taking your prescription medication. Rather, ask your health care provider to review your prescriptions at least once a year. Also, your pharmacist can give advice about medication.
Make healthy lifestyle choices
Don’t smoke, eat a healthy diet, get good medical care for physical and mental illnesses, get a good night’s sleep, and avoid pollution.

When to Get Medical Advice
Talk to a health care worker when:
- You struggle with cognitive tasks you used to manage easily. For instance, if you lose your car in a parking lot, and this is new for you, that tells you to be concerned. But if you have lost your car now and then for much of your life, you can assume nothing in your brain has changed.
- Everyday absent-mindedness is getting worse. For instance, maybe losing your car in the parking lot is nothing new for you, but one day you can’t remember if you brought your car or took the bus. Or perhaps you get lost somewhere you have been many times before.
- You don’t recognize where you are in familiar places, or you don’t recognize people you know well.
- Someone close to you says they notice you are having problems with memory or thinking.
If you experience any of the above and are concerned about your cognitive health, make an appointment with a health care provider. Cognitive decline can usually be helped by treatment. Also, sometimes it is caused by an underlying illness that needs attention. Maybe the idea of getting a diagnosis of cognitive decline is scary, but it can lead to treatment and recovery, and you’ll get your health back.
Resources
HealthlinkBC: An Active and Healthy Brain
- A brief how-to guide for keeping your brain healthy
- View guide
- Call 811 for 24/7 help
- This will connect you to HealthLinkBC’s health service navigators. They can answer basic health care questions and help you find your way around the health care system.
- Call 8-1-1 (7-1-1 for the deaf and hard of hearing)
- Available 24 hours a day, seven days a week
- Translation services are available in over 130 languages
- For non-emergency situations only
- This will connect you to HealthLinkBC’s health service navigators. They can answer basic health care questions and help you find your way around the health care system.