The brain is affected by ageing like all other organs and ageing, in any tissue or organ has two effects. One is a loss of ability, for example even if Bradley Wiggins had continued to train he would not have been able to  improve his world records because the maximum rate at which his heart could beat will decrease from about forty on. The second is loss of resilience, Roger Federer is still performing at the top but it takes longer for him to recover, and loss of resilience , the able to bounce back after an injury or a disease or a change in environmental temperature is reduced by the normal ageing process. The activities of the brain and the mind are usually classified as being either to do with emotion or cognition and it is the latter that is of greater concern because as what is called normal cognitive ageing occurs the brain loses capacity to carry out activities such as learning, problem solving, quick decision making and remembering
 
Of these remembering is most widely recognised and talked about and many people worry that memory slips are the early signs of dementia.  Memory slips are not a sign that dementia will inevitably develop and listed in the box below are memory slips that the authors of this book experience frequently: -
 
 
 
·      Inability to record the name of someone met yesterday.
·      Forgetting where the car keys are.
·      Ringing the mobile phone to find out where in the house it is, and hoping that it is not on silent.
·      Inability to recall the author of a book which made a great impression when read twenty years ago.
·      Failure to remember if one has double locked the front door or not.
 
The other type of change that is common and obvious is the loss of ability to make decisions quickly, for example if competing in a television or pub quiz, and much is made of the superior ability of young people’s decision making speed.  However, speed is only one criterion by which the quality of a decision should be judged.  You certainly need quick decision making if you are flying a fighter jet.  However not many people need these skills, and of course, computers with artificial intelligence – the robots - are taking over many of the tasks that require rapid decision making and hand/eye coordination.  Furthermore, many decisions do not have such time pressure, decisions about work and social life for example, and it is possible to make such decisions too quickly.  Oscar Wilde wrote that “experience is the name we give to our mistakes” and the importance of experience is now recognised.  Older people have more experience and are certainly no worse at making decisions that matter than young people and may even be better because they don’t make decisions so quickly, having made so many wrong decisions before. And the American College of Physicians , a highly respected and scientific organisation emphasised in their report on cognitive ageing that although “some cognitive functions, such as memory and reaction time, decrease others such as wisdom and knowledge, increase with age”
It is also important to appreciate the concept of brain reserve , again an aspect of ageing. If you fall at the age of eighy the probability that you will fracture your hip depends not only on heavy the fall but also the strength of your bones. If your bones are very thin, a condition called osteoporosis that you are much more likely to sustain a fracture. The probability that you have osteoporosis is determined not so much by your diet or your genes as how strong your bones were when at their strongest, and how quickly you lose bone strength. Look at the decline in bone strength in two people shown in figure 1
 

Person A is bigger and stronger in early life so although theylose bone strength at the same rate they do not develop osteoporosis. Person A has a greater reserve than person b. they are more resilient and cope better with that demands not only of ageing but of an environment wthat offers very little opportunity to people to keep challenging their bones, for example by carry logs home to keep the home fires blazing. They have greater reserve or another way to put it greater resilience to cope with sudden demands (it’s just like a bank account really, the more you have to start off with the easier is it to cope with unexpected big bills)  But person B is not condemned to develop osteoporosis. If at the age of forty she reads about the need to increase bone strength and starts doing more exercise that puts a strain on the bones of her legs, knees bend with a 3 kg weight in each hand she can increase bone strength, and increased or reserves and resilience.
 
It is just the same with the brain. The more brain power you have to start off with, the greater the brain reserve or cognitive reserve and the better able are you to cope with challenges to the way your brain and mind work  whether from normal ageing, for example increasing isolation resulting from a disabling physical disease, or even if you are unfortunate enough to develop dementia. The more brain or cognitive reserve, the experts use different phrases for the same thing you have the longer can you keep functioning without  you or anyone else noticing.
 
Obviously it helps to start with a lot of brain ability  but, as with bone strength, at any age you can slow the downward decline and increase your reserves and your resilience    

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