As Baycrest researchers focus their efforts on finding effective treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, there are still opportunities to intervene.

“There are at least 20 prevention strategies currently available that have the potential to slow cognitive decline and prevent various forms of dementia,” says Dr. Howard Chertkow, Chair in Cognitive Neurology and Innovation and senior scientist at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute.

We know that Alzheimer’s disease starts to develop in the brain decades before the symptoms of memory loss become obvious,” says Dr. Chertkow, who is also the scientific director of Canada’s largest dementia research network, the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging, headquartered at Baycrest. “There are things people can start now to reduce their risk of dementia.”

Below are some of the things people can start doing now – at any age.