Caring for someone who is ill is emotionally and often physically draining as well.
Caring for someone who has Alzheimer’s or other form of dementia can often lead to the carers themselves becoming sick, exhausted, stressed, depressed, fearful and lonely.

In Australia we have over 250,000 people living with dementia, that’s over 1% of our total population. For every person with the disease there are on average 2.5 caregivers involved in their care. Often the primary caregiver is a spouse, partner or family member. They themselves may be relatively elderly with other associated health problems and susceptibility to stress induced cardiovascular illness and increased mortality.

With the number of people living with dementia expected to triple by 2050, we need to be looking at ways not only to assist the person with the illness, but also the carers themselves: providing sufficient support and access to appropriate services.

The problem in being a carer is not only does it increase your own risk of illness and exhaustion; the ongoing stress significantly increases your risk of depression and for developing dementia.

So what can be done to help alleviate some of the strain?

Dr Helen Lavretsky from UCLA Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behaviour has published the findings of a new study, which examined the value of providing yoga meditation practice for carers.

What the study showed was firstly

1. An improved level of cognitive function and lower levels of depression and

2. A reduction in stress induced cellular aging

What does this means for carers?

Carers will often report high levels of emotional distress and 50% are at risk of developing clinical depression.
In the study, 49 carers (age range 45- 91) were either taught a brief 12 minute yogic practice that included chanting meditation Kirtan Kriya, or, if they were in the control group they sat in a quiet place with their eyes closed, listening to instrumental music on a relaxation CD for 12 minutes.

After 8 weeks of those in the mediation group, 65% showed a 50% improvement on a depression rating scale, and 52% showed an improvement on a mental health score.

This compared to a 31% depression improvement and 19% mental health improvement for the relaxation group.

So learning brief yogic mediation made a significant difference in a very short time frame. One would imagine that this would provide ongoing benefit if the carer was to continue with the practice on a daily basis. Professor Lavretsky commented that the benefits appear to be specific to Kirtan Kriya, which incorporates several different elements of chanting, finger poses and visualisation.She describes this as providing “brain fitness” in addition to the stress reduction.

The other interesting finding was in relation to cellular ageing.

At the end of our chromosomes we have what are called telomeres. An enzyme called telomerase helps to maintain our telomeres. If the enzyme telomerase activity is absent, then every time our cells divide, our telomeres get shorter until eventually the cells die. Promoting or maintaining a higher level of telomerase therefore helps our telomeres to be maintained and immune cell longevity.

In the study there was a whopping difference between the two groups in terms of increase in telomerase activity.

The mediating group showed a 43% improvement in telomerase activity compared to just 3.7% in the relaxation group.

Professor Lavretsky now plans a follow up study to confirm these findings using a neuroimaging study of Kirtan Kriya meditation. She has also incorporated yoga into the caregiver program as part of the UCLA Alzheimer’s and Dementia Care program. This program aims to provide comprehensive coordinated care, resources and support to both patients and caregivers.

The great thing about this study is the huge amount of benefit provided to the carers through a simple and inexpensive yoga program.
It would be fantastic if this could be made available on a wide scale to all carers as it could make all the difference between “just surviving” and “managing well.”

Ref:
H. Lavretsky, E.S. Epel, P. Siddarth, N. Nazarian, N. St. Cyr, D.S. Khalsa, J. Lin, E. Blackburn, M.R. Irwin. A pilot study of yogic meditation for family dementia caregivers with depressive symptoms: effects on mental health, cognition, and telomerase activity. International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 2012; DOI: 10.1002/gps.3790

Over the centuries, meditation has been used to reduce stress, improve focus, attention and memory.

A few years ago when going through a period in my life that was proving to be somewhat stressful, I enrolled in a six-week meditation course.
And I have to say it was hugely beneficial.
Having to mentally and physically stop for that one brief hour each week, was very calming and it did help me cope.
I can’t say it was easy either. Being a person always on the go, never allowing myself the luxury to step back and stop the endless mind-chatter was quite a challenge and it took a while to get the hang of it.
But then I would start to look forward to that time, and little by little I did learn how to focus on the breath, to be more “present” and just take in the sounds around me with out allowing my thoughts to rudely intrude and distract.
I could actually just acknowledge them and let them float off somewhere else.

Whilst there of a lot of awareness of the beneficial physiological changes associated with meditation for some time, it has only been over the last few years that scientific studies have been able to show more of what is going on in the brain when we meditate and the promise that further research may have, for future brain health benefits.

The brain itself actually undergoes physical change in response to meditation.
A study by Sara Lazar, research scientist from the Massachusetts Hospital Boston showed that regular meditation causes thickening of the cerebral cortex in those areas of the brain associated with decision-making, attention and memory.

The question arising from her study is: Would regular meditation slow the natural thinning of the cortex that occurs with age?

The cortex is associated with higher brain function. So, can meditation be shown to increase attention span, sharpen focus and improve memory?

The proponents of meditation say it can:

In 2007 a study by Amishi Jha and Michael Baine at Penn’s Stress Management Program at the University of Pennsylvania looked at how meditation affected the three separate components of paying attention ie:

• The ability to prioritise and manage tasks and goals.
• The ability to voluntarily focus on specific information.
• The ability to stay alert to the environment

They had two groups. The first group was new to meditation and undertook an 8 week course, which included 30 minutes daily meditation.
The second group was experienced in meditation and went on a full time one-month retreat.
Both groups underwent computer-based tests on response speeds and accuracy and both groups showed improved performance in attention and ability to focus. The experienced group did better overall but the new group demonstrated significant improvements over just a course of weeks.

The implications here suggested it would be worthwhile teaching employees to meditate, because even 30 minutes a day produced improved attention and focus.

Attention is the key to learning. So it would appear that meditation allows you to improve your attention and hence learning capacity.

The Deutsche Bank, Google and Hughes Aircraft now offer meditation classes for their workers because of the perceived benefits to their employees
with:

• Increased productivity
• Reduced stress related illness
• Reduced absenteeism
• Reduced number of errors or mistakes
• Improved recall and memory due to having a relaxed and clear mind.

Mental activity in meditation is wakeful and relaxed. Professor Jim Lagopoulos from Sydney University used EEG testing to look at the difference in the brain when mentally active, resting, asleep or meditating as the brain has some form of electrical activity in all of these.

What he found was that those engaged in non-reactive meditation produced more marked changes in electrical brain wave activity associated with wakeful relaxed attention, compared to those who were just resting without any specific mental technique.

What about meditation as a tool to prevent memory loss?

The results of a small pilot study into use of meditation to prevent memory loss was published in March 2010 by Dr Dharma Singh Khalsa and Andrew Newberg Associate Professor of Radiology Pennsylvania University School of Medicine

They had 15 subjects age 52 to 77 years. with known memory problems.
They undertook 8 weeks of Kirtan Kriya mediation for 12 minutes a day.

All the subjects underwent cognitive testing and brain imaging at the beginning and end of the 8-week period.

The meditation used was very simple.
The subjects had to repeat four sounds SA, TA, NA, MA while touching their thumb to index, middle, ring and little finger.

They had to perform this out loud for 2 minutes,
At a whisper for 2 minutes
In silence for 4 minutes
Then a whisper for 2 minutes
And finally out loud again for 2 minutes

They were all given a meditation CD to play at home.

In the control group with memory loss, they were asked listen to two Mozart violin concertos for 12 mins a day.

Of the 15 in the meditation group;
7 had mild age associated memory impairment
5 had mild cognitive impairment
3 had moderate impairment with Alzheimer’s disease.

Of the 5 in the control group;
2 had mild cognitive impairment
3 had age related memory impairment.

The results found that those in the meditating group showed increased blood flow to frontal and parietal lobes (areas associated with memory retrieval) on scanning. In cognitive testing they all had improved performance in general memory and attention.

Those who had listened to music, showed some increased blood flow in different areas of brain but of less significance and they showed no improvement in cognition.

The suggestion from the study is that meditation may be useful in those with mild memory impairment to slow down or inhibit progression of memory loss by “strengthening” the brain.

Whilst interesting, it has to be noted that this was an extremely small study, but certainly warranting further investigation with larger studies to see if this finding can be replicated.

Other researchers have also looked at the question of whether meditation can assist focus and thereby allow better memory

Dr Gary W Small, Director of Memory and Ageing Research Centre, University of California has found that exposing older people to technology such as the internet changed their brain activity in just one week. He found that the older subjects showed an increase in frontal lobe activity in their brains and where short term memory and decision-making is important.

Meditation appears to be a useful tool not only for the workplace but also to perhaps assist us to maintain our cognition, as we get older.
It may not be too long before meditation is offered more widely as a strategy to keep us brain fit.