Exercising The Mind Can Keep Dementia At Bay

A new study in Bronx seniors provides yet more proof that keeping your mind active for fun can delay memory loss in dementia.

Dr. Charles B. Hall of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York, and his colleagues found that if a person engages in one of six mentally stimulating leisure activities every day per week, such as reading, writing, and playing card games, the onset of dementia is delayed by about two months. The study was published in the journal of American Academy of Neurology.

Hall and his colleagues had previously shown that people with more years of education who developed dementia did so later than less educated individuals. In the current study, he said, “it was the cognitive activity that mattered, not the education.”

In the present study, Hall and his colleagues looked at 101 people who developed dementia.