Living a Brain-Healthy Life: A Recap of the Annual Ignite Aging Symposium

On Friday, September 27, the UW School of Nursing de Tornyay Center for Healthy held its seventh annual Ignite Aging Symposium. Faculty and students spoke at the event, sharing how everything from our heart to diet and physical activity helps our cognition. Couldn’t make it? Learn a few of the takeaways from the brief talks here:

Kristen Childress, Associate Teaching Professor, spoke on ‘Heart Health = Brain Health’. A healthy heart is deeply connected with a healthy brain. Cognitive issues are more common in people with heart problems, and many of the things we can do to care for our heart also help our brain. Regular exercise and following the MIND diet – a combination of the Mediterranean diet and a heart-healthy diet – are two things we can do to support both organs. The MIND diet lists nine foods to eat, including berries, beans, and green leafy vegetables, and suggests avoiding five foods, including red meat and sweets. Maintaining good blood pressure and blood sugar management also helps our heart and brain, as does maintaining a healthy weight and cholesterol, and quitting smoking. For everything from diet to exercise, Childress shared that even if you don’t stick perfectly to recommendations, any improvement can still bring health benefits, and it’s never too late in life to start new healthy habits.

Jingyi Li, UW Tacoma School of Nursing & Healthcare Leadership Assistant Professor, spoke on ‘Advancing Health Equity Through Culturally-Adapted Alzheimer’s Café Program in Chinese American Community’. Li is part of a team piloting Alzheimer’s cafés for Chinese Americans. There are currently 20 Alzheimer’s cafés in Washington state. These cafés serve as a “social gathering for people living with dementia and their loved ones in a community space like a coffee shop or restaurant,” shared Li. However, most of the people who go to existing cafes are white. Language and cultural barriers, especially for Chinese Americans who aren’t fluent or as comfortable in English, can make it harder for them to participate. Li’s teams’ first café for Chinese Americans was piloted September 2024 and featured an agenda of fun and culturally relevant activities.

Sarah McKiddy, a PhD Candidate in Nursing Science at the UW School of Nursing, spoke on ‘Conceptualizing Age: Why Age Is More Context Than Chronology’. She highlighted that what we call ‘aging’ really refers to many different things. Our bodies, minds, and relationships with our community all change through the years, but not always at the same pace. Lots of factors can influence how well our brain ages. Things like lifelong learning, socializing, and activities like reading can all help maintain good cognition in our later years. How we think about age can affect aging. When communities expect older adults’ brain health to worsen, that can result in fewer opportunities for older adults to participate in their communities.

Lalipat Phianhasin, UW School of Nursing PhD in Nursing Science student, discussed, ‘Social Determinants of Health and Functioning in Older Adults with Strokes.’ Phianhasin spoke on her research investigating what factors influence people’s recovery after a stroke. These factors, often known as the social determinants of health (SDOH), include things like where people live, health care access, education, and income. Phianhasin and her team found a number of connections between the SDOH and stroke recovery. For example, people who were unmarried or lived below the poverty line

were more likely to report limitations at work because of health problems after a stroke. Their findings point toward a path for future research, which could help us understand how these factors affect recovering from a stroke, and improve future support and outcomes.

Vitor Oliveira, UW School of Nursing Research Assistant Professor, spoke about ‘Improving Cognitive Health Through Physical Activity’. Physical activity is not the same as exercise, Oliveira shared. Any type of movement counts as physical activity. Exercise, on the other hand, is intentional activity planned out for specific purposes, such as increasing strength. Current best practice recommendations focus on how much physical activity to get throughout the week, which doesn’t have to look like conventional exercise. The recommendation is 150 minutes of moderate physical activity a week, which includes things like walking, biking, or gardening, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity, like running or playing sports. Like Childress, Oliveira stressed that any physical activity is better than none. Incorporating more movement into your week, no matter how much, will be great for your brain and cognition.

Kendra Kamp, UW School of Nursing Associate Professor, spoke about ‘The Role of Fiber in Gut Health as we Age’. Our gut, like many areas of our body, has a rich ecosystem of bacteria, fungi and other microorganisms. In our gut, this ecosystem is known as the gut microbiome and is a key part of our gut health. Our gut microbiome isn’t only important for our digestion. Research is also finding that it can affect lots of different systems in our body. Everything from liver health to heart health and more can be impacted by our gut microbiome. One key thing we can do to care for these microbes in our gut is eat more fiber. Most Americans don’t get enough, but it can be as easy as making choices like swapping white bread for whole wheat, and adding in snacks like an apple. More fiber is not only good for your digestion, but for your brain as well. “Some research suggests that people who eat more fiber have a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia,” said Kamp.

At the end of the program, musicians and PhD in Nursing Science students Megumi Azekawa and Sarah McKiddy highlighted the benefits of music on cognitive health through interactive musical activities, including singing with live piano accompaniment and using egg shakers, a hand percussion instrument.

 

Interested in learning more about aging topics from the UW School of Nursing? We invite you to join us at our next annual Ignite Aging on Thursday, September 25th, 2025. We hope to see you there!