Gardening, singing and reading can keep the mind active and reduce the risk of dementia

LONDON: A study says staying active physically and mentally in middle age can reduce the risk of developing dementia decades later.

According to the study published in the journal Neurology, mental activities included reading, playing instruments, singing in a choir, visiting concerts, gardening, needlework or the participation in religious services.

"These results indicate that these activities at the average age could play a role in preventing dementia in the elderly and in preserving cognitive health," said Jenna Najar of the University of Gothenburg in Sweden.

"It's exciting because these are activities that people can integrate into their lives quite easily and without much expense," Najar said in a statement.

The study involved 800 Swedish women aged 47 years and followed for 44 years. At the beginning of the study, participants were asked about their mental and physical activities.

Participants received scores in each of the five domains based on their frequency of participation in mental activities, with a zero score for no or low activity, one for moderate activity and two for high activity.

For example, a moderate artistic activity consisted of attending a concert, a play or an art exhibition during the last six months, while an intense artistic activity consisted in making themselves more frequently , to play an instrument, to sing in a choir or to paint. The total possible score was 10.

The participants were divided into two groups. The lower group, with 44% of participants, had scores of zero to two and the high group, with 56% of participants, had scores of three to 10.

For physical activity, participants were divided into two groups, active and inactive.

The active group ranged from light physical activities such as walking, gardening, bowling or cycling (minimum four hours per week) to regular intensive exercises such as running or swimming several times a week or practicing competition sports.

In total, 17% of participants belonged to the inactive group and 82% to the active group.

During the study, 194 women developed dementia. Of these, 102 had Alzheimer's disease, 27 with vascular dementia and 41 with mixed dementia, where more than one type of dementia is present, such as plaques and tangles of the disease. Alzheimer's as well as the changes in blood vessels seen in vascular dementia.

The study found that women with a high level of mental activity were 46% less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and 34% less likely to develop overall dementia than women with low levels of Alzheimer's disease. level of mental activities.

Physically active women were 52% less likely to develop dementia badociated with cerebrovascular disease and 56% less likely to develop mixed dementia than inactive women.

The researchers took into account other factors that could affect the risk of dementia, such as high blood pressure, smoking and diabetes.

They also badyzed the results after excluding women who developed dementia at the mid-point of the study to eliminate the possibility that these women were at the early stage of dementia, with less involvement in activities from the first symptoms.

The results were similar except that physical activity was badociated with a 34% reduced risk of dementia.

Of the 438 women with a high level of mental activity, 104 developed dementia, compared with 90 of 347 women with a low level of activity.

Of the 648 women with a high level of physical activity, 159 developed dementia, compared to 35 out of 137 inactive women.