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People
who continue to engage in mental challenges as they age have lower rates of
Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.
There are many ways to engage your mind; you can be creative with
this and find what you enjoy most.
Two
activities that are particularly helpful are socializing and playing
musical instruments. Interestingly, these very same activities also cause
new brain connections to develop in children.
Alzheimer’s
typically affects areas of the brain that are involved in memory, language
and visual-spacial abilities. Activities that
engage these parts may be particularly helpful, such as:
Memory: memory games, card games.
Language: books, novels,
journal-writing, word games and cross-word puzzles, social activity.
Visual-Spacial:
picture-puzzles, art, maps.
One
last note about the science of this: it has not been clearly proven that
mental activity prevents dementia. It is always possible that those who
disengage from mental challenges are doing so because they have early signs of dementia. However, increasingly elegant studies
that have followed people for longer periods have added more weight to the
argument that these activities are indeed preventative.
Updated 6/2/4 by Chris Aiken,
M.D.
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The Art of
Painting, Johannes Vermeer
Scientific References
Verghese, J. Leisure activities and the risk of dementia in the
elderly. New England Journal of
Medicine 2003 Jun 19; 348:2508-16.
Wilson, RS.
Cognitive activity and incident alzheimer’s
disease in a population-based sample of older persons.
Neurology. 2002 Dec 24;59(12):1910-4.
Friedland, RP. Patients
with Alzheimer's disease have reduced activities in midlife compared with
healthy control-group members. Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences. 2001 Mar 13;98(6):3440-5.
Whalley, LJ. Childhood
mental ability and dementia.
Neurology. 2000 Nov 28;55(10):1455-9.
Bassuk, SS. Social disengagement and incident cognitive decline in
community-dwelling elderly persons. Annals
of Internal Medicine 1999 Aug 3; 131:165-173.
Haan MN. Can social engagement prevent cognitive decline in old
age? Annals of Internal Medicine
1999 Aug 3; 131:220-221.
Snowdon, DA. Linguistic
ability in early life and cognitive function and Alzheimer's disease in
late life. Findings from the Nun Study. Journal
of the American Medical Association. 1996 Feb 21;275(7):528-32.
Ott, A.
Prevalence of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia: association with
education. The Rotterdam study. British
Medical Journal 1995 Apr 15; 310:970-973.
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