TOPLINE:

Lifelong engagement in cognitive enrichment activities was associated with a 38% reduction in the risk of incident Alzheimer’s disease (AD) dementia and delayed disease onset by more than 5 years, according to new research.

METHODOLOGY: 

• A longitudinal study used data from the Rush Memory and Aging Project, which began in 1997 and included nearly 2000 Illinois residents (mean age, 80 years; 75% women) without dementia at baseline.
• Participants completed surveys assessing cognitive enrichment, including socioeconomic factors, access to cognitive resources, and the frequency of engagement in cognitively stimulating activities. Lifetime enrichment was defined as a composite measure encompassing activities across early-, mid-, and late-life stages.
• Outcomes included global cognition, incident AD dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), age at onset, and the rate of cognitive decline.
• AD and related dementia neuropathologic analyses were conducted in a subset of 948 deceased participants.

TAKEAWAY:

• During a mean follow-up of 7.6 years, 551 participants developed AD dementia and 719 developed MCI. Each 1-point increase in lifetime cognitive enrichment was linked to a significantly lower risk for incident AD dementia and MCI (hazard ratios, 0.62 and 0.67, respectively; P < .001 for both).
• Higher lifetime cognitive enrichment was also associated with better cognitive function at baseline (P < .001) and a slower rate of cognitive decline (P = .002).
• Participants in the 90th percentile (high lifetime cognitive enrichment) developed AD dementia a mean of 5.4 years later than those in the 10th percentile (low lifetime cognitive enrichment).
• In the deceased participants, lifetime cognitive enrichment was not strongly associated with most AD-related neuropathologies; but it remained associated with higher cognitive function near death (P < .001) and slower cognitive decline after adjusting for pathology (P = .02).

IN PRACTICE:

"Our findings are encouraging, suggesting that consistently engaging in a variety of mentally stimulating activities throughout life may make a difference in cognition," lead investigator Andrea R. Zammit, PhD, Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, Chicago, said in a press release. 

SOURCE:

The study was published online on February 11 in Neurology.

LIMITATIONS: 

The study relied on retrospective self-reports of enrichment activities, which may have introduced recall bias despite good psychometric properties of the measures. Additionally, the cohort consisted predominantly of highly educated older adults from a single US region, which limited generalizability to more diverse populations. 

DISCLOSURES:

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health. The investigators reported no relevant conflicts of interest.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.