Cynthia Huling Hummel, 61, is eating healthy, exercising, and keeping active in order to keep her condition from worsening — and her neurologist says it’s working.

BOSTON — Researchers have found a small piece of good news for people at high risk of some kinds of dementia: it might be possible to delay it or even prevent it.

They found falling rates of vascular dementia in people who also happened to improve their heart health. The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, support the idea that what’s good for the heart is good for the head.

“Our study offers cautious hope that some cases of dementia might be preventable or at least delayed,” Claudia Satizabal of the Boston University Schools of Medicine and colleagues wrote in their report.

Researchers have found a small piece of good news for people at high risk of some kinds of dementia: it might be possible to delay it or even prevent it.

They looked at more than 5,000 people who have been having their health tracked in minute detail as part of the Framingham Heart Study. The multi-generational study has been going on since 1948 and in 1971 children of the original volunteers signed up. Their memory has been tested since 1975.

“On average, since 1977, there has been a decline in the incidence of dementia of 20 percent per decade,” the researchers wrote. The decrease in rates of vascular dementia has been 29 percent per decade.

“The decline in the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease was not significant, whereas the decline in the incidence of vascular dementia appeared to be more rapid than that of Alzheimer’s disease,” they added.

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