Mentally stimulating activities such as reading, writing and learning a new language could affect your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study by researchers at Rush.
The researchers found that those with the most lifelong learning developed Alzheimer’s disease five years later and developed mild cognitive impairment seven years later than those with the lowest amount of lifelong learning.
“Our findings suggest that cognitive health in later life is strongly influenced by lifelong exposure to intellectually stimulating environments,” said study author Andrea Zammit, PhD, neuropsychologist at Rush.
'Sustained engagement over time'
The study, published Feb. 11 in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, included 1,939 adults with an average age of 80 who were followed for an average of eight years.
The participants reported lifelong learning in self-assessments at the start of the study. Lifelong learning includes having encyclopedias, magazines or newspapers in the home, being read to, learning a foreign language and visiting libraries, among other activities in childhood.
It also includes subscribing to a newspaper, reading books and having library cards in middle age, reading, writing, and playing board games that are intellectually stimulating — like chess or solving puzzles, in late life.
“In this study, we looked at sustained engagement over time — a general pattern of how engaged a person is with these cognitive enriching activities,” Zammit said.
Could help fend off cognitive decline
Participants were part of the Rush Memory and Aging Project, a longitudinal study that began in 1997, who agreed to an assessment of risk factors, detailed clinical evaluation each year and brain donation at the time of death. The project is designed to capture the full spectrum of conditions in an aging population. Of the participants, 551 developed Alzheimer's disease and 719 developed mild cognitive impairment.
Researchers say the findings may be useful in helping to prevent or delay the onset of memory and thinking problems.
The researchers adjusted for factors such as age, sex and education. The researchers found an association with those who had more lifetime enrichment had a 38% lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease and a 36% lower risk of mild cognitive impairment.
People with the most lifetime enrichment developed Alzheimer’s disease at an average age of 94, compared to age 88 for those with the lowest level of enrichment.
And people with the most lifetime enrichment developed mild cognitive impairment at an average age of 85, compared to age 78 for those with the lowest level of enrichment.
“Our findings are encouraging, suggesting that consistently engaging in a variety of mentally stimulating activities throughout life may make a difference in cognition,” Zammit said.
Reading to children
Participants were asked, among other things, if an adult read to them when they were children.
“Daily reading along with other cognitively stimulating experiences fostered from childhood onwards creates an enriching foundation for the future,” Zammit said.
They found those with higher lifetime enrichment had better memory and thinking skills and slower decline prior to death, even when researchers accounted for brain changes linked to Alzheimer’s, like the buildup of proteins called amyloid and tau.
“The findings suggest that regardless of the presence of plaques and tangles amongst other pathologies in the brain, lifetime cognitive enrichment had a protective effect and delayed the onset of mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease dementia,” Zammit said.
A limitation of the study was that participants reported details about their early and midlife experiences later in life, so they may not have remembered everything accurately.
The National Institutes of Health helped fund the study.
