The government and ASIC are demanding banks and financial service providers strengthen their scam and fraud defences. With this nefarious activity costing Australians $318 million in the past 15 months alone, the industry’s positive response has not come quickly enough.
With industry funds feeling the heat from APRA, it’s likely more members will look for a better option, especially if they are nearing or in retirement. Those choosing to do so need to tread warily.
Successful dementia trial prompting call for national campaign
Henry Brodaty (pictured) is a man on a mission. Co-director of the University of NSW’s Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), he wants a national campaign to address dementia in the same way that the Slip, Slop, Slap campaign, launched in 1981, created far greater awareness of skin cancer.
Having successfully led a team that’s just concluded a six-year clinical trial, titled Maintain Your Brain, which has demonstrated an internet-delivered lifestyle intervention results in significantly better cognition in older adults, he wants it to be the foundation stone of a government-funded campaign.
“It’s no different to the successful anti-smoking and Slip, Slop, Slap campaigns that have delivered such enormous public health benefits. With dementia, this campaign could be for people once they hit 55, to enable them to build a cognitive buffer that would delay the onset of dementia.
“What I need to do now is write a submission for the Department of Health and Aged Care as I firmly believe the cost benefits of such a campaign would make it an extremely beneficial program, both in terms of the dollars saved and improving people’s lives.”
The numbers certainly give weight to the value of such a campaign, with a recent study involving 10,000 people estimating that 42 per cent would develop dementia. It’s an alarming statistic that’s put into better perspective when it’s broken down to show it’s only about eight per cent over 65, a number that rises to 20 or 25 per cent over 80 and 30 per cent over 90.
Even then, the numbers are still confronting, especially when it’s considered it’s a disease that can often have a disruptive impact on partners and families.
In the clinical trial conducted by CHeBA – other universities involved were Sydney, Western Sydney, Melbourne, Monash and Flinders University – the researchers recruited more than 6,000 participants to target modifiable risk factors for dementia in general and Alzheimer’s disease in particular. Participants were without dementia but carried at least two of the major risk factors for this disease.
The trial directly or indirectly tackled several of the 14 modifiable risk factors, reported by the Lancet Commission, that account for about 45 per cent of the risk of dementia, with the researchers saying the findings – they have been published in Nature Medicine – have international significance.
“This intervention is scalable with the potential for population-level roll-out that may delay cognitive decline in the general community,” says Brodaty. “We could essentially reduce worldwide dementia prevalence if this trial were implemented to the wider population.”
The trial specifically tested whether improving lifestyle behaviours can slow cognitive decline.
“The outcome was a resounding yes – we can improve cognition over three years and therefore, likely enhance resilience to dementia,” says Brodaty. “Both groups improved but the intervention group demonstrated the greatest benefit to date in a randomised control trial to prevent cognitive decline.”
The findings recommend personalising prevention efforts and suggest that interventions focused on just one modifiable risk factor, for example physical inactivity, are less effective in preventing dementia.
“Previous trials have largely not tailored interventions to match dementia risk factors of individual participants. Our findings suggest personalising interventions and targeting a broad range of lifestyle factors are important for success,” he says.
The estimate of the intervention effect – the four modules were physical activity, nutrition, brain training and peace of mind – is considered conservative, given the control group and the group that received personalised coaching both improved.
Through assessing self-reported change from baseline to the year three follow up, researchers also noted significant improvements in aerobic activity, strength training, diet and depression scores.
“If we were able to compare the intervention with a control group that received no information at all, we would likely find out that the benefits of this trial would be even greater,” says Brodaty. “Participants aged between 55 and 65 showed greater benefit than those aged between 66 and 77, suggesting we should consider starting prevention programs earlier.”
