Study finds that cognitive activity in old age may delay the onset of dementia by 5 years

– Yuji Sakai / Dig­i­talVi­sion / Get­ty Images

Demen­tia Comes 5 Years Lat­er for Some (Med­Page Today):

A cog­ni­tive­ly active lifestyle that involves read­ing and pro­cess­ing infor­ma­tion in old age may delay the onset of demen­tia in Alzheimer’s dis­ease by as much as 5 years, a lon­gi­tu­di­nal study suggested.

Old­er adults who had the high­est lev­el of late-life cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty had a mean onset age of Alzheimer’s demen­tia of 94, report­ed Robert Wil­son, PhD, of Rush Uni­ver­si­ty Med­ical Cen­ter in Chica­go, and colleagues.

In con­trast, those with the low­est late-life cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty lev­els devel­oped demen­tia at age 89, they wrote in Neurology.

Our study shows that peo­ple who engage in more cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties may be delay­ing the age at which they devel­op demen­tia,” Wil­son said in a statement.

It is impor­tant to note, after we account­ed for late-life lev­el of cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty, nei­ther edu­ca­tion nor ear­ly-life cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty were asso­ci­at­ed with the age at which a per­son devel­oped Alzheimer’s demen­tia,” he con­tin­ued. “Our research sug­gests that the link between cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty and the age at which a per­son devel­oped demen­tia is main­ly dri­ven by the activ­i­ties you do lat­er in life.”

This study pro­vides fur­ther sup­port for the con­cept of cog­ni­tive reserve, where genet­ic and life expo­sures allow some peo­ple to cope bet­ter than oth­ers with age- or dis­ease-relat­ed brain changes,” not­ed Yaakov Stern, PhD, of Colum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty in New York City, who was­n’t involved with the research.

The Study:

Cog­ni­tive Activ­i­ty and Onset Age of Inci­dent Alzheimer Dis­ease Demen­tia (Neu­rol­o­gy). From the Abstract:

  • Objec­tive: To test the hypoth­e­sis that high­er lev­el of cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty pre­dicts old­er age of demen­tia onset in Alzheimer’s dis­ease (AD) dementia.
  • Meth­ods: As part of a lon­gi­tu­di­nal cohort study, 1,903 old­er per­sons with­out demen­tia at enroll­ment report­ed their fre­quen­cy of par­tic­i­pa­tion in cog­ni­tive­ly stim­u­lat­ing activ­i­ties. They had annu­al clin­i­cal eval­u­a­tions to diag­nose demen­tia and AD, and the deceased under­went neu­ropatho­log­ic exam­i­na­tion. In analy­ses, we assessed the rela­tion of base­line cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty to age at diag­no­sis of inci­dent AD demen­tia and to post­mortem mark­ers of AD and oth­er dementias.
  • Results: Dur­ing a mean of 6.8 years of fol­low-up, 457 indi­vid­u­als were diag­nosed with inci­dent AD at a mean age of 88.6 (SD = 6.4; range: 64.1–106.5). In an extend­ed accel­er­at­ed fail­ure time mod­el, high­er lev­el of base­line cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty (mean 3.2, SD = 0.7) was asso­ci­at­ed with old­er age of AD demen­tia onset (esti­mate = 0.026; 95% con­fi­dence inter­val: 0.013. 0.039). Low cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty (score = 2.1, 10th per­centile) was asso­ci­at­ed with a mean onset age of 88.6 com­pared to a mean onset age of 93.6 asso­ci­at­ed with high cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty (score = 4.0, 90th per­centile). Results were com­pa­ra­ble in sub­se­quent analy­ses that adjust­ed for poten­tial­ly con­found­ing fac­tors. In 695 par­tic­i­pants who died and under­went a neu­ropatho­log­ic exam­i­na­tion, cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty was unre­lat­ed to post­mortem mark­ers of AD and oth­er dementias.
  • Con­clu­sion: A cog­ni­tive­ly active lifestyle in old age may delay the onset of demen­tia in AD by as much as 5 years.

The Study in Context:

About SharpBrains

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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