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Higher cognitive activity was associated with a higher
baseline cognitive function. The ongoing cognitive activity was associated with less
decline in working memory and less decline in perceptual speed; not that people don’t
decline but they decline less than other people who were not functioning as well earlier
in life. And then controlling for age and education and gender they found that a lower
level of cognitive activity predicted faster cognitive decline and probably most
provocatively, that the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease decreased by 33% for each
additional point on their scale of reported cognitive activity. That didn’t work for the
other things they measured, it was the cognitive activity that again this engagement in
novel activity that seemed to be the predictor of a reduced level of risk for
Alzheimer’s disease. |