Muscat: With the theme, 'Never too early, never too late', Oman celebrates International Alzheimer's Day (September 21) on Thursday.
Purple is the official colour designated for Alzheimer's, and the Royal Opera House Muscat will sport the colour, giving importance to the awareness campaign for a disease that has affected almost 12,000 people in the Sultanate of Oman.
Dr Hamed al Sinawi, Chairman of Oman Alzheimer's Society, said dementia risk reduction can prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias.
Adopting a healthy lifestyle can prevent the onset of dementia, and it's never too early or too late to reduce your risk of developing dementia, he pointed out.
"Tackling dementia risk factors for individuals before and after a diagnosis could reduce or slow down the oncoming 124,800 projected dementia cases by 2050," Dr Hamed noted.
To mark the occasion, Al Harub Medical Centre has been lit up in purple throughout September.
"We hope people will talk more about the issue that is quite prevalent in Oman. Having purple light on our building brings awareness to this issue, which is very close to us because we see it often in our practice. We are trying to implement an intervention. We are trying to implement Cognitive Stimulation Therapy for people with early Alzheimer's. We want to do something more preventative and have research," said Nutaila al Kharousi, Psychologist and Managing Director of Al Harub Medical Centre.
According to Alzheimer's Disease International, the World Alzheimer's Report 2023, released on Wednesday, will focus on reducing the risk of dementia. The report examines the drivers behind risk reduction, including lifelong risk reduction, the steps that individuals can take to reduce their risk, the role of government in providing population-based systematic changes to promote risk reduction and the importance of dementia research.
According to Alzheimer's Disease International, the ten warning signs of dementia are memory loss, difficulty in performing familiar tasks, problems with language, disorientation to time and place, poor or decreased judgment, problems keeping track of things, misplacing things, changes in mood and behaviour, trouble with images and spatial relationships and withdrawal from work or social activities.
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