KEY POINTS:
Scientists have been preaching the benefits of mental exercise to the elderly for years, but a new study may be the clincher that some people in their golden years have been waiting for.
The study found that a little mental workout goes a long way, and that a sharper mind can make everyday tasks such as driving, book-keeping, shopping and cooking easier.
"Our findings clearly suggest that people who engage in an active programme of mental training in late life can experience long-lasting gains from that training," said Michael Marsiske, an associate professor of clinical and health psychology at the University of Florida's College of Public Health and Health Professionals.
The volunteers in the study said they were still reaping the benefits of improvements in memory, reasoning and speed of processing five years after they underwent the cognitive training provided to them by the study's organisers.
What's more, at the five-year mark, these volunteers reported less difficulty performing everyday chores - such as doing simple arithmetic in their heads and looking up numbers in a telephone book - than a "control" group of pensioners who did not get the tune-up.
The researchers who conducted the study had previously reported on the short-term benefits of the classroom sessions, chief among them that the immediate impact of the training was sufficient to counteract the cognitive declines seen in healthy older adults over a seven-to-14-year period.
In the paper they said they were surprised to see the gains holding up five years later, and added that it was the first time that such mental training had been shown to affect life skills in the elderly - skills which are essential for independent living.
Close to 3000 American senior citizens between the ages of 65 and 96 participated in the experiment, which ran from 1998 to 2004.
The volunteers were divided into four groups and asked to practise problem-solving, memorise word lists and sequences of items or identify visual information quickly on a computer screen for a maximum of 18 hours. A fourth "control" group got no training.
In an editorial accompanying the study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Centre in North Carolina suggested that similar programmes could be developed for the mass market.
- AFP
