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a 20-year study of 2832 people aged 65 and older suggests specific exercises may offer benefits.
The participants were randomly assigned to one of three intervention groups or to a control group. One group engaged in speed training, using a computer-based task called Double Decision, which briefly displays a car and a road sign within a scene before they disappear. Participants must then recall which car appeared and where the sign was located. The task is adaptive, becoming harder as performance improves.
The other two groups took part in memory or reasoning training, learning strategies designed to improve those skills.
The participants completed two 60-75-minute sessions per week for five weeks. About half of those in each group were then randomly assigned to receive booster sessions – four additional 1-hour sessions at the end of the first year, and another four at the end of the third year.
Twenty years later, the researchers assessed US Medicare claims data to determine how many of the participants had been diagnosed with dementia. They found that those who completed speed training with booster sessions had a 25 per cent lower risk of diagnosis with Alzheimer’s or a related dementia compared with the control group. No other group – including speed training without boosters – showed a significant change in risk. “The size of the effect is really quite astonishing,” says Albert.
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Source: Specific cognitive training has ‘astonishing’ effect on dementia risk | New Scientist
Robin Edgar
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