Brain-Stimulating Activities Help Older People Stay Sharp

Brain-stimulating activities are the ones that can help seniors defeat the aging process.

Our brain needs to be stimulated every day if we want to decline the aging process. Although it might seem easy when you are young, the older you get the harder it is to keep your mind sharp. Brain-stimulating activities are the ones that can help seniors defeat the aging process.

A new study showed that older people who engage in brain-stimulating activities like using the computers are less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment in more than 4 years. Mild cognitive impairment is a medical condition that it is developed at an older age. People who develop MCI experience a decline in thinking skills and memory.

Despite the fact that they suffer from memory loss or decline of thinking skills, people who developed MCI are able to so their activities. Researchers from the Mayo Clinic mentioned that it is important to engage in brain-stimulating activities even when we are older because it helps us decline the risk of developing MCI.

There are many studies which focused on this topic but none of these studies followed the patients in the long run. This research was a long one that analyzed older people for a longer period of time. This way it is easier for researchers to see if these brain-stimulating activities have an effect on reducing the risk of MCI.

In order to conduct this study, researchers analyzed more than 2,000 elderly people. These people were from Minnesota and they had an average age of 77. Before starting the study the researchers tested all the participants to see if they have any cognitive problems. After that, the researchers made the same tests every 15 months.

Due to the fact that they repeated the same tests, it was easier for the researchers to see what changed in that period of time. The findings showed that the participants who engaged in a brain-stimulating activity at least once a week were 30% less likely to develop mild cognitive impairment during this study.

The researchers were not able to find out the reason for which these activities help seniors reduce the risk of MCI. This is why they mentioned that they are going to make more studies focusing on this topic.

What is your opinion about this study? Do you think that brain-stimulating activities can reduce the risk of MCI?

Image source: Pixabay

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Nancy Young

When I was younger I used to spend almost all of my free time playing computer games. My mom and dad would go mental over this. “You’re never going to do anything with your life if you are going to play games all day” they used to say. What was even more unusual was the fact that I played more games than most of the guys in my friend group. Looking back, I have to admit that I probably played a bit too much, but I also learned a lot of great things. When I turned 20 I decided that it was high-time to make some money of my own, but the only jobs I could get were that of waitress or cashier. How exciting. After several excruciating months of serving tables I had a great idea: since I love gaming so much, why don’t I write about it? That’s when I started doing small writing projects on Elance. Eventually, I got an offer for a part-time job. During that time I learned all about content marketing strategies and how search engines work. I started writing about various topics such as technology, health and lifestyle and discovered that I was actually good at it. On November 24, 2014, I became part of the ArgyllFreePress team.