Letter of the week: I don’t worry about death, but the spectre of losing my mental capacities 

I refer to the Opinion piece “My mother had Alzheimer’s, now I do too. But I learnt from her not to despair” (June 11).

Mr Stephen Gettinger’s mother had Alzheimer’s disease for decades before her death, and now, in his 70s, he has had the same condition diagnosed. He reports being haunted by “thoughts of decay and death” and agonising about “a pathetic decline that would make me and my family miserable”.

Like Mr Gettinger, I’m now in my 70s. Death doesn’t worry me, and I hope I can adjust to physical disability, but what really scares me is the spectre of losing my mental capacities due to Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia. As a teacher and writer, my identity depends on my thinking abilities.

Two sources of hope for me holding on to my cognitive powers are the fact that my family, to my knowledge, has no history of dementia, and that a recent randomised, controlled clinical trial suggests that lifestyle changes may beneficially impact the progression of mild cognitive impairment, including early dementia due to Alzheimer’s.

The study’s principal investigator, Professor Dean Ornish, is professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and has done previous research that reported benefits of lifestyle changes on heart disease and prostate cancer.

Fortunately, I’m already mostly following the lifestyle used by the treatment group in Prof Ornish’s recent study: I eat a plant-based diet, exercise regularly and include strength training, and spend time relaxing and chilling with family members, colleagues and friends.

Thus, I hope to continue sending letters to The Straits Times Forum page for many decades to come. 

George Martin Jacobs