Keeping your brain active throughout life by learning new skills or reading could help delay Alzheimer’s disease.
Lifelong learning and mentally stimulating activities could help delay Alzheimer’s disease and slow cognitive decline, according to a new study.
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Researchers found that people who regularly engaged in intellectually stimulating activities – such as reading, writing, learning another language, playing chess, solving puzzles, or visiting museums – were less likely to develop dementia.
“They kind of like stretch your brain and your thinking. You’re using your different cognitive systems,” explained neuropsychologist Andrea Zammit of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, who led the study.
Even for those who did not take up what Zammit calls cognitively enriching activities earlier in life, researchers say it is not too late to start. Middle age may be a particularly important window for protecting brain health.
Scientists are exploring a wide range of ways to stay mentally sharp, from learning music to birdwatching and brain-training games.
"It’s not just one activity. It’s more about finding meaningful activities that you might be passionate about," Zammit said – and sticking with them rather than dabbling.
Physical health is critical to brain health, too. That's why experts also recommend the work-up-a-sweat kind of exercise as well as controlling blood pressure, good sleep, even later-in-life vaccination.
How the study was carried out?
Zammit's study on lifelong learning study enrolled nearly 2,000 older adults, ranging from age 53 to 100, who started out dementia-free and were tracked for eight years.
Researchers quizzed them about educational and other cognitively stimulating activities in their youth, middle and older ages, and administered a battery of neurologic tests.
Some were later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. But the condition appeared around five years later in those who reported the highest levels of lifelong learning compared with those with the least, the team reported in the journal Neurology.
Higher levels of mental activity in middle age and later life were also linked to a slower rate of cognitive decline.
Researchers also examined autopsy findings from 948 participants who died during the study. Even when their brains showed the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease, people with more cognitively “enriched” lives had better memory and thinking skills and experienced slower decline before death.
Scientists call this phenomenon cognitive reserve. It suggests learning strengthens neural connections across different areas of the brain, helping it remain more resilient and able to compensate for damage caused by ageing or disease.
The Rush University study can’t prove cause-and-effect - it shows an association between cognitive stimulation and dementia risk. Other studies offer similar clues, such as those linking brain health to playing a musical instrument.
Separate studies are also exploring “speed training” for the brain, using online programmes that require users to quickly identify images on a screen while distractions increase.
The research comes as dementia's toll continues to grow around the world. More than 57 million people worldwide live with the condition, including an estimated 9.8 million in Europe. That number is expected to grow in the coming decades.
According to Alzheimer’s Disease International, there are over 10 million new cases of dementia every year, which works out to one new case every 3.2 seconds.
