Stroke Risk Profile May Also Predict Odds of Memory Problems

Study: Tool That Predicts Stroke Risk Also Shows Who's Most Likely to Have Memory Problems in the FutureBy Cari Nierenberg
WebMD Health News

Nov. 7, 2011 -- A screening profile used to gauge a person's chances of having a stroke may also give doctors an easy way to predict a person’s odds of having future memory and thinking problems, a new study reveals.

This assessment tool is known as the Framingham Stroke Risk Profile (FSRP). It estimates an adult's likelihood of having a stroke over a 10-year period compared to other people of the same age and sex.

In this large study, published in the journal Neurology, researchers looked at nearly 24,000 U.S. adults aged 45 and older (average age 64 years). None of them had had a stroke or memory problems.

A Stroke Risk Profile was calculated for each participant, with a score based on age and blood pressure, and whether the person had a history of heart disease, smoking, diabetes, or atrial fibrillation (an abnormal heart rhythm). Other factors in determining the FSRP score included whether or not a participant was using blood pressure medications or had evidence of left ventricular hypertrophy (a thickening of the heart muscle, usually related to longstanding and poorly controlled hypertension).

Volunteers were also given a yearly test to rate their memory.

During an average four-year follow-up period, about 8% of participants had developed memory problems. Being older, African-American, male, living? in the so-called "stroke belt," having less schooling, and having thickening of the heart muscle were all factors associated with a higher risk of developing memory difficulties over time.

Researchers also found that all of the elements of the FSRP were significant predictors of future memory problems individually and that people with higher combined FSRP scores had a greater chance of showing signs of memory loss during the study.

"Overall, it appears that the total Stroke Risk Profile score, while initially created to predict stroke, is also useful in determining the risk of cognitive problems," study researcher Frederick Unverzagt, PhD, says in a news release. He is a professor of psychiatry at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis.

After taking into account complicating factors, getting older and having thickened heart muscle were both independently linked with future memory problems. High systolic blood pressure (the first number in a reading) also appeared to raise a person's odds of memory decline, even in the absence of heart muscle thickening.

“Our findings suggest that elevated blood pressure and thickening of the heart muscle may provide a simple way for doctors to identify people at risk for memory and thinking problems,” Unverzagt said.

The researchers also suggest that encouraging people to pay more attention to preventing and controlling high blood pressure may help preserve their brainpower later in life.

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New Book Reveals How Understanding Memory Processes Leads to Academic Success

Kurt Eby's new book, "Getting an 'A' Without Trying" sounds too good to be true, and at first, it even seems a bit far-fetched, but readers will quickly find that Eby not only has a method to his "madness" but he has actually developed a very logical and simple way of memorizing information through associations that can easily result in earning A's in school. As Eby points out early, even though higher education tends to emphasize critical thinking, first you need to know the material before you can think about it critically, and most "knowing" is simply memorizing facts and figures.

At first glance, the methods Eby suggests may seem outlandish, even nonsensical-they are like crazy cartoons running through our heads-and his classmates concluded, from looking at his notes, that he was either a genius, a cheater, or nuts. But Eby does not claim to be any of the three-he is simply the inventor of a very logical learning method that also happens to be a great deal of fun.

The result of Eby's method was that he received A's in school. In fact, he was only the third person ever to graduate from Palmer College of Chiropractic West with a 4.0, and he did that while only studying 30 percent as much as his classmates. In his book's introduction, Eby tells us, "The point of this story is not to brag about how brilliant I am, but as you will see throughout this book, it is rather about how ordinary I am, and about how anybody can do what I have done."

So what is Kurt Eby's secret? He has taken the time to understand how memory works, and then to build up associations for what he must memorize and to use visual representations of information so they remain firmly in his mind. Really, his method is not much more complicated than that, but the results are astounding, and anyone who reads this book and follows the exercises will quickly discover that he or she can do the same.

As a former professor and someone who has always enthusiastically been able to remember historical dates with little trouble, I think Kurt Eby's method would be very beneficial to students. When a student, I created my own little methods to help me remember things, often associated with stories or using rhythm to remember vocabulary definitions, but I never formulated anything so elaborate as what Kurt Eby has accomplished. Nevertheless, because I have used some similar, though less developed methods, I can definitely see how his process would work effectively.

As a novelist, I also appreciate Eby's methods because I have long known that storytelling is an effective way of learning material. Eby basically teaches us how to create story plots in our heads, associated with the information we need to remember. I think Eby's methods only reinforce how powerful stories are as a way to learn that can also make learning fun as well as educational.

I wish I and all students were taught such a method in elementary school, and this method is so simple that even elementary school children could easily learn it-in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they excelled at it more than older students because they have spent less years mislearning how to learn.

Furthermore, I think many people, as they read about Eby's methods, will nod their heads and say, "I did something like that to remember X when I was in school." Only, most of us did not take the time to develop such methods further and thereby missed out on the benefits Eby saw as a result.

Finally, I appreciate Eby's practical advice not just about how to learn information, but the importance of the mindset required to learn and to succeed in showing you have learned the information. For example, he states:

Your mental attitude when you go into the examination is also extremely important. When I was a TA, I taught students to develop the attitude of looking at examinations as an opportunity to show off. If you go into an examination fearing it, the exam tends to eat you alive. However, if you go into the examination with the attitude that it is your opportunity to show the world how much you know, you come from a much stronger position.

Beyond strategies for memorizing, Eby also reminds readers how to think like teachers so they can take tests in a way to produce impressive results in their teachers' opinions. Eby gives helpful advice for how to answer questions that might not be as easy as simple memorization, as in the case of writing in-class essays, or how to impress instructors during oral examinations.

This book may look small and its methods may be simple, but its information is revolutionary and life-changing nevertheless; buying this book and spending the small amount of time required to read it is well worth the hundreds of hours of study time you will save and the reward of better grades you will assuredly receive. The path to the A's you have always wanted can easily be found within the pages of "Getting an 'A' Without Trying."

Tyler R. Tichelaar holds a Bachelor's and Master's Degree from Northern Michigan University and a Ph.D. from Western Michigan University. His family's long relationship with Upper Michigan and his avid interest in genealogy inspired Dr. Tichelaar to write his Marquette Trilogy: Iron Pioneers, The Queen City, and Superior Heritage. Dr. Tichelaar is also a professional book reviewer and editor. For more information about Tyler R. Tichelaar, his writing, and his author services, visit:

http://www.marquettefiction.com/

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