WASHINGTON: Regular intellectual activity appears to reduce an elderly person’s risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, according to a 21-year study published on Thursday in the United States.

Reading, dancing and playing musical instruments and board games were associated with a reduced risk of dementia among the 469 elderly people tracked during the study, according to the authors.

Participating in these activities once a week cut the risk of dementia by seven per cent in the study group, and the reduction swelled to 63 per cent among those who engaged in intellectually stimulating activities on at least 11 days out of the month, according to the study published in Thursday’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The study’s authors stressed, however, that the findings “do not imply that subjects who were less active cognitively increased their risk of dementia.”

The authors also cautioned that the study’s subjects were not fully representative of the general population, since most of the 469 people participating in the study were white and older than 75, while dementia generally strikes people over the age of 65.

The researchers concluded that “If there is a causal role, participation in leisure activities may increase cognitive reserve, delaying the clinical or pathological onset of dementia.

“Alternatively,” they said, “participation in cognitive activities might slow the pathological processes of disease during the preclinical phase of dementia.”—AFP