Mental exercises have been touted as a way of preventing dementia – but new findings suggest their benefits may be mixed.
According to a major study, published last night, being mentally fit may lead to acceleration of the decline of the brain later in life.
The effect is to "compress" the illness, delaying its onset and speeding up its progress, researchers said.
Researchers in Chicago, USA, studied some 1,157 people over the age of 65 for the research published in the journal Neurology.
They found that people with Alzheimer’s disease seemed to suffer from having been mentally active – with their rate of decline increasing rapidly according to the activity of their mind.
Mental activity was rated on a five-point scale – and each point slowed the onset of dementia by half. But it increased the rate of decline in Alzheimer’s by 42 per cent.
Researcher Dr Robert Wilson, of Rush University, Chicago, said: "Our results suggest that the benefit of delaying the initial signs of cognitive decline may come at the cost of more rapid dementia progression later on, but the question is why does this happen."
Neurology on-line September 1 2010
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