Building a Cognitive Reserve May Help Delay Multiple Sclerosis symptoms

Intel­lec­tu­al Enrich­ment Helped Pre­serve Mem­o­ry and Learn­ing in Mul­ti­ple Scle­ro­sis Patients, Study Says (Web­MD)

  • f-300x225A small study of mul­ti­ple scle­ro­sis (MS) patients shows that main­tain­ing an intel­lec­tu­al­ly active lifestyle can help pre­serve learn­ing and mem­o­ry, even among patients with a high degree of brain damage.”
  • Although there’s no indi­ca­tion that being men­tal­ly engaged pro­tects against brain dam­age itself, the find­ings do sug­gest that an active mind may be bet­ter equipped to retain its func­tions even in the event of brain damage.”
  • The find­ings sug­gest that enrich­ing activ­i­ties may build a per­son­’s ‘cog­ni­tive reserve,’ which can be thought of as a buffer against dis­ease-relat­ed mem­o­ry impair­ment,” says study author James Sumows­ki, PhD. “Dif­fer­ences in cog­ni­tive reserve among per­sons with MS may explain why some per­sons suf­fer mem­o­ry prob­lems ear­ly in the dis­ease, while oth­ers do not devel­op mem­o­ry prob­lems until much lat­er, if at all.”

For a deep­er dive into Cog­ni­tive Reserve research and impli­ca­tions, you may enjoy:

2 Comments

  1. Kerry on June 15, 2010 at 11:00

    Excel­lent infor­ma­tion ~ Thank you



  2. Jennifer on June 20, 2010 at 6:48

    Main­tain­ing a healthy lifestyle with prop­er diet and exer­cise can hold off phys­i­cal prob­lems, so this infor­ma­tion cer­tain­ly makes sense. Per­haps larg­er stud­ies should be done to show if there are cer­tain types of cog­ni­tive exer­cise which can improve the cog­ni­tive reserves and help improve qual­i­ty of life of MS patients.



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SHARPBRAINS is an independent think-tank and consulting firm providing services at the frontier of applied neuroscience, health, leadership and innovation.
SHARPBRAINS es un think-tank y consultoría independiente proporcionando servicios para la neurociencia aplicada, salud, liderazgo e innovación.

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