Keeping mentally busy tied to less memory loss
People who spend a lot of time reading, writing and otherwise seeking and processing new information lose their thinking and memory skills more slowly as they age, a new study suggests.
Researchers found being “cognitively active” both early and later in life was tied to better performance on memory tests among people in their 80s.
The new study included 294 of those participants who died at an average age of 89 and underwent a brain autopsy to look for cognition-related changes.
They had each taken an average of six annual cognitive tests during the study, which showed that 102 developed dementia and 51 developed mild cognitive impairment.
The study team found cognition declined 42 percent faster for participants who rarely read and wrote early in life than for the average person, and 32 percent slower for the very cognitively active.
“This confirms that the effect of cognitive activity is over and above anything having to do with pathology,” said Charles Hall, who has studied the effects of mental activity at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York.
But keeping mentally busy shouldn’t be a chore. Photography, quilting and book clubs may all keep people’s minds working.
SOURCE: bit.ly/lUcacJ Neurology, online July 3, 2013.
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