Being social can delay the dementia of five years – including eating outside, traveling, even playing bingo

Visiting friends, going to holidays and attending bingo games in church or community can help keep your brain healthy, according to research carried out at Rush University which shows frequent social activity can help to prevent or delay dementia in old age.

“In this study, we show that the least active elderly have developed dementia on average five years before the most socially active,” said Bryan James, PhD, an associate professor of internal medicine in Rush.

Social activity can strengthen neural circuits in the brain, which makes them more resistant to the accumulation of pathology that occurs with age. Social behavior activates the same areas of the brain involved in thought and memory.

The results, published online in Alzheimer’s and dementia: the newspaper of the Alzheimer’s associationsuggest that more frequent social activity indicates a reduction of 38% of the risk of dementia and a reduction of 21% of the risk of light cognitive disability, compared to the least socially active.

In addition, a period over five years at the start of dementia was estimated at three more years of life and an economic advantage of the reduction in dementia of 40% in the next 30 years, potentially $ 500,000 in Savings in lifelong health care for each person who would eventually develop dementia.

The authors note that the results highlight the value of social activity as a possible intervention at community level to reduce dementia.

The study included 1,923 elderly people without dementia with an average age of around 80 years who participate in the Rush memory and aging project, a continuous longitudinal study of the common chronic conditions of aging.

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In total, 545 participants developed dementia and 695 developed a slight cognitive impairment. They each underwent annual assessments which included medical history and neuropsychological tests.

Social activity was measured on the basis of a questionnaire who asked the participants if, and how often, the previous year, they had engaged in six current social activities which involved a social interaction – for example, s ‘They went to restaurants or sporting events, played at Bingo, took day or night trips, volunteered or visited parents or friends.

The cognitive function was evaluated using 21 tests for various types of memory as well as perceptual speed and visuospatial capacity.

Use it or lose it

At the start of the survey, all participants were free from any sign of cognitive disability. However, on average five years, those who were more socially active showed reduced dementia rates. Other variables that could have explained the increase in cognitive decline – such as age, physical exercise and health – were all adjusted in the analysis.

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Why social activity plays a role in the development of cognitive problems is not clear. One possibility is that “social activity challenges the elderly to participate in complex interpersonal exchanges, which could promote or maintain networks of effective neurons in a case of using it or lose it,” said James in Rush News.

The study is a monitoring of the previous articles of the Rush group showing that social activity is linked to a less cognitive decline – even a light cognitive impairment.

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