VIDEO: Boosting awareness key to maintaining brain health in face of climate change

SAN DIEGO — Increasing awareness of the looming threat to brain health posed by global climate change is key for neurologists, according to a speaker at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting.

“We tend to know about climate, but we don’t always recognize that it can be a risk factor. The fossil fuels we burn can be a risk factor for conditions like dementia, like stroke, like autism,” Beth A. Malow, MD, MS, professor of neurology and pediatrics in the department of neurology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, said in this Healio video regarding her plenary session. “It’s really important as neurologists we also recognize that extreme heat can affect our patients.”

Malow also implored neurologists to take “any action they can, even if small,” to make a difference in patients’ lives, particularly to close the gap between diagnosis of neurologic conditions and treatment.

Among her other suggestions for those in the neurology sphere: talking to patients about clean energy sources and working with local health care systems to decrease emissions and talking to friends, neighbors and other community members about climate change and health.

“Climate change is truly in our lane,” she added.

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Beth A. Malow, MD, MS, can be reached at beth.malow@vumc.org.