Brain health

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  Brain health
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  How do we maintain a healthy brain?

  Research shows us looking after your brain in your 40s, 50s and 60s is vitally important as this is when changes start to occur in the brain. By incorporating simple changes into your everyday life, you can lower your risk of developing dementia.
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  Reduce your risk of dementia

  Dementia isn’t inevitable. 45% of all dementia cases are avoidable: find out what you can do to reduce your risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. Includes a printable fact sheet of the risk factors and what you can do to prevent dementia.
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  Reducing Dementia Risk: webinar

  In this webinar, Dr Marita Long, Dementia Australia Honorary Advisor and practising GP, discusses changes in thinking and how to monitor them, as well as dementia risk factors and strategies that can help to reduce them.
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  The mediterranean diet: webinar

  In this webinar, dietitian Emma Butler describes how you can incorporate aspects of the Mediterranean diet into your daily food habits. You will learn about: the Mediterranean diet; the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet; and practical ideas for healthy meals and snack options.

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  Healthy Brain, Healthy Life: How to reduce your risk of developing dementia (2025)

  Keeping your brain healthy is essential for living a fulfilling, healthy and long life. In fact, scientific research suggests that a brain healthy lifestyle can reduce your risk of developing dementia later in life. Whether you are old, young or in-between, there are simple changes you can make to improve and protect your brain health. This book will help you get started in making changes to support your health. This booklet covers the following topics: Reducing your risk of dementia; Looking after your heart; Looking after your body; Increase physical activity; Maintain a healthy, balanced diet; Maintain healthy sleep patterns; Check your hearing and other senses; Protect your head; Looking after your mind; Creating and maintaining healthy habits; and What to do if you are worried.

• Think Ahead - harmful substance use and the brain by Dementia Australia

  Publication Date: 2018

  This resource aims to increase awareness about the impact of harmful substance use on the brain. It urges readers to ‘think ahead’ about the future of their brain health and to recognise that current actions can have consequences in the future. In this resource, the term ‘harmful substances’ refers to non-prescription substances such as alcohol, tobacco, inhalants and illicit drugs that are taken to alter mood, cognition and behaviour.

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  BrainTrack App

  BrainTrack is a free app developed by Dementia Australia that helps you monitor and understand changes in cognition over time, which you can use to start a conversation with your GP. The app will provide brain health information through fun, travel-themed games that test your cognition. The resulting conversation and monitoring may lead to an earlier diagnosis of dementia.
• CogDrisk - Cognitive Health and Dementia Risk Assessment

  CogDrisk is a free online tool developed by leading Australian researchers and uses the latest evidence to help you understand your dementia risk profile. The assessment gives you a personalised report that you can discuss with your doctor and takes approximately 20 minutes to complete.

• Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission (2024)

  The 2024 update of the Lancet Commission on dementia provides new hopeful evidence about dementia prevention, intervention, and care. As people live longer, the number of people who live with dementia continues to rise, even as the age-specific incidence decreases in high-income countries, emphasising the need to identify and implement prevention approaches. We have summarised the new research since the 2020 report of the Lancet Commission on dementia, prioritising systematic reviews and meta-analyses and triangulating findings from different studies showing how cognitive and physical reserve develop across the life course and how reducing vascular damage (eg, by reducing smoking and treating high blood pressure) is likely to have contributed to a reduction in age-related dementia incidence. Evidence is increasing and is now stronger than before that tackling the many risk factors for dementia that we modelled previously (ie, less education, hearing loss, hypertension, smoking, obesity, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes, excessive alcohol consumption, traumatic brain injury , air pollution, and social isolation) reduces the risk of developing dementia. In this report, we add the new compelling evidence that untreated vision loss and high LDL cholesterol are risk factors for dementia.
  Livingston, G., [et al] (2024). Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission. The Lancet, Volume 404, Issue 10452, 572 - 628
• An online multidomain lifestyle intervention to prevent cognitive decline in at-risk older adults: a randomized controlled trial (2025)

  Effective, scalable dementia prevention interventions are needed to address modifiable risk factors given global burden of dementia and challenges in developing disease-modifying treatments. A single-blind randomized controlled trial assessed an online multidomain lifestyle intervention to prevent cognitive decline over 3 years. Participants were dementia-free community-dwelling Australians aged 55-77 years with modifiable dementia risk factors. The outcome of this study suggests that these types of interventions could be scalable and may reduce cognitive decline.
  Brodaty, H., Chau, T., Heffernan, M., Ginige, J. A., et al. (2025). An online multidomain lifestyle intervention to prevent cognitive decline in at-risk older adults: a randomized controlled trial. Nature medicine, 10.1038/s41591-024-03351-6. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03351-6
• Optimizing brain health across the life course: WHO position paper (2022)

  Many determinants are known to affect brain health at different stages of life. The position paper provides a conceptual framework for what brain health is and how brain health can be optimized throughout life with actions across the following clusters of determinants: physical health, healthy environments, safety and security, learning and social connection, and access to quality services.
• Risk reduction of cognitive decline and dementia: WHO guidelines (2019)

  The WHO Guidelines on risk reduction of cognitive decline and dementia provide evidence-based recommendations on lifestyle behaviours and interventions to delay or prevent cognitive decline and dementia.
  World Health Organization (WHO). (2019). Risk reduction of cognitive decline and dementia: WHO guidelines. Geneva.
  Note - these guidelines are under currently under review (2024)

• Healthy brain - The Brain Foundation

  The Healthy Brain Program, an initiative of the Brain Foundation, aims to assist Australians to keep their brains healthy into old age, through the provision of community education and research. The resources page includes puzzle books which can be downloaded for free.
• Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA)

  CHeBA is an international centre of excellence in multidisciplinary research into the ageing brain and various aspects of cognitive disorders, including dementia.
• Think Brain Health

  A public awareness and engagement campaign from Alzheimer’s Research UK. The campaign is designed to build an appreciation among the public – particularly those in their 40s and 50s – about the importance of good brain health, and how taking positive steps can help reduce the risk of dementia later on. Get started by trying the brain health quiz!
• Brain Health Scotland

  Includes information for all ages, advice and research about keeping your brain healthy.
• Reduce your risk / Alzheimer's Research Australia

  Alzheimer's Research Australia has information about reducing your risk of developing dementia through advocating lifestyle changes to promote brain health.
• Brain Health Initiative / World Federation of Neurology

  Information about brain health including, what is brain health and what happens when brains are not healthy.
• Reduce your risk of dementia / Alzheimer's Society UK

  There are things you can do to reduce your own risk of developing dementia. These include keeping active, eating healthily and exercising your mind.
• Promoting Brain Health Across the Lifespan / Neurological Council of Western Australia

  Our brains are always changing — from birth through to old age — shaped by the way we live, learn, eat, sleep and move. While some neurological changes are beyond our control, research shows that many aspects of brain health are modifiable. That means the choices we make each day can strengthen our brains, protect against cognitive decline and support better outcomes for people living with neurological conditions. This article explores practical, evidence-backed strategies to support lifelong brain health — from sleep to nutrition, movement, mindset and more.

• World Brain Day 2025 Webinar / World Federation of Neurology

  Webinar focused on brain health across the lifespan. Brain health isn’t a moment in time—it’s a lifelong commitment. World Brain Day 2025 is our call to action to protect neurological well-being from the earliest stages of development, through childhood, adulthood and into older age.