Dementia

I too am becoming less social with age. I left all social media and all messaging apps except Telegram about a year ago and Ive no regrets, it has certainly made life easier with fewer people to cope with. I try to avoid family social type events as I just cannot follow their conversations which cross each other within a room, they are good people but have no clue (except my wife and her sister in law) how to include me in these group times. 

I know quite a lot about dementia as my mum was diagnosed with it in 2014 then I moved in as her full time carer in 2015. It was one of toughest times of my life. She passed away in 2019. I then moved back to a town in north west England where Id lived previously and was just trying to rebuild my life when pandemic hit. 

AnA

Only because all this stuff came through and it mentioned about getting out and socialising. Not about dementia in particular. I have just spent a week away outside of asking for food 99% of the conversations were with my partner. Not sure if this is socialising or not. Is it just sitting in a busy place or do you have to talk as well. Is there a minimum amount. Then if you have to talk what do you talk about?

Why are you asking about dementia?

I wonder if the stylites and other eremitic saints suffered cognitive decline? They believed themselves to be in a conversation with God, however.

This must vary enormously, I have a very rich interior life, if ever imprisoned I would much prefer solitary confinement over having to socialise.

The central question is, if the social brain - in reality a diffuse network within the brain - lacks stimulation and degrades, would that equate with losing other cognitive functions and result in a general cognitive decline, or would the decline be isolated and other regions and functions be unaffected? 

'The Social Brain provides the functional capacity for the different aspects of social cognition, like social perception, emotional processing, and the efferent connections that carry important signals which determine both conscious behavior and unconscious physiological responses to social stimuli. Therefore, when an individual is submitted to social isolation, it is this framework that harbors the target structures, connectivity networks, and social cognitive functions that are often adversely impacted by isolation.'

I'm becoming less social by choice as I get older, I find socialising stressful, other people find socialising wtth me stressful, I don't drink, I'm vegetarian and lactose intolerant, I don't swim or ride bycylces, I'm unable to do most sorts of exercise classes, not that I do groups anyway, so what is there left for me to do with people?

I do puzzles, I walk daily, I eat a healthy diet, I garden, I read both fiction and non fiction.

I do my socialising on here, I can have as much or as little as I want, I dont' need people to be physically present. 

I wonder if we manifest demntia differently to NT's? I've heard it said that autistics are more prone to dementia, the first thing I thought was Why? I don't think I believe that we are particularly prone to it, I wonder if the diagnostic criteria need changing when dealing with an ND population, how many of us seek out company? Many of us have so many hobbies and things that we find deeply interesting, we don't want to be disturbed to go and do armchair airobics or something.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/.../

There must be a very considerable overlap. Socialising, if we discount smell, consists of visual, aural and possibly tactile inputs and largely motor outputs. It is using the parts of the brain that control the interpretation and production of speech, vision, higher cognitive functions and the motor areas. I suspect that all of these brain areas could be stimulated and used in some solitary activities. Even the production of speech is now possible with AI chatbots.

Martin said:

I think it is more about keeping the brain active, rather than socialising as such

I wonder whether different parts of the brain are stimulated by social as opposed to solitary activities  

I think the 'staving off dementia' advice is aimed at allistics. Allistics tend to get lots of positive feedback and stimulation from social interactions, autistic people less so, or too much for comfort. I think it is more about keeping the brain active, rather than socialising as such. I keep my brain active by reading, writing stuff on Wikipedia and arguing with people about politics online. I think that whatever floats your boat and keeps your brain active and engaged is all that is required.

I think this would probably be a bit of an issue for quite a few (most?) autistic people.

We are more likely to do the other sorts of things that help eg. puzzles and quizzes.

I do think though that some social contact does help to keep the brain active.

This is a very pertinent question for latelings like me who was diagnosed at 60.