How to Protect Against Dementia Later in Life?

Someone just sent me a study published by the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry with some pretty cool findings. According to the study, a “cognitive reserve” helps protect people against dementia later in life. In layman’s terms, this means that if a person has more robust connections in their brain, they are less likely to show signs of dementia as they age.

To trace cognitive reserves early in life, researchers found a group of Swedes that were being followed for a few decades as part of what is called an age cohort study. Using public records, they were able to find the participants’ middle school grades. From there, they concluded that people who did better academically in middle school were significantly less likely to show signs of dementia as they aged.

Why might this be the case? The article, A Life-Course Study of Cognitive Reserve in Dementia — From Childhood to Old Age, proposed two possible causes:

1. “Childhood school performance likely reflects properties of the central nervous system, such as processing speed and capacity, which could affect the rate of decline associated with age and mitigate the impact of pathology on the clinical development of dementia.” This means that if a person has a stronger brain, they are better protected against old age decline, and childhood school grades are a strong indicator of a person’s brain strength.
2. “Individuals with poor school grades may have difficulties in accessing health services, exposing themselves to otherwise preventable conditions, such as heart disease and stroke.” This means that if someone has poor school grades they’re more likely to have other health challenges, which increases the likelihood of dementia in old age.

So why does this matter? Well, your child’s school grades, brain processing speed and capacity are all highly predicted by the number of words their during his first years of life.

Each word you speak to a young child has permanent benefits. And there’s no better demonstration of permanent than the impact your words have on your child 80 or 90 years down the road.

This piece was originally posted at VersaMe.com. VersaMe created the Starling the world’s first wearable engagement tracker that helps encourage and reinforce positive parenting behaviors.