Puzzles, games, a good book - any activity that excites the brain has been found in a study supported by the nation’s Institute on aging to delay the start of dementia related memory loss in older folks. So, how are puzzles and brain health linked?

The info comes from the Bronx Aging Study that includes information on nearly 5 hundred subjects between seventy five and 85 years old who did not have dementia at the start of the analysis.

The study appears in the August four, 2009 issue of Neurology and has found cognitive leisure activities seem to stave off the memory decline in people who end up being diagnosed with dementia.

Some of the factors thought to be involved include what’s called cognitive reserve, that may feel the effects of education early in life as well as taking part in activities that stimulate the brain.

It’s this cognitive reserve that’s thought to help hold off the fall in memory related to dementia in the preclinical stages, the time before you see the symptoms.

The subjects, all part of the Bronx Aging Study, finished assessments each 12 to months that told analysts if they took part in mentally stimulating out of work activities like reading, crossword puzzles, playing music, writing, playing cards or a board game or taking part in a group debate.

The subjects also indicated how often they participated in these things, daily, a few days a week or weekly. Point totals were assigned to the frequencies and tabulated by the study team.

The info on 101 of the subjects who developed dementia over the five-year chase up was evaluated carefully. The median ( middle ) total points for this group being seven, which worked out to taking part, normally in 1 of the six activities every day.

In all, 10 participants reported no activities, another 11 reported only 1 activity per week.

The researchers looked especially closely at the point when memory loss accelerated for each player.

The more mentally active subjects took longer for memory decline to become a problem. They saw that each further activity day was linked to a delay in the onset of decline by 0.18 years for these subjects.

The team also saw that later-in-life psychological stimulationappears to affect your overall cognitive reserve independent of education. Anybody can get the benefit of mentally challenging activities.

The average age of the Earth’s population is increasing at a rate we’ve never seen before. Worldwide the number of folk over 65 is conjectured to be 506 million in 2008, a stupefying 1.3 bn. by 2040, which is–% of the total population of the world.

The issues and challenges of aging are going to be hard to ignore in the future years, which is the reason why finding out about dementia and the way to overcome it’s so crucial.

So, this study gives us more proof to show that brain exercises, games and puzzles and metal health are connected.

Next - just head on over to the Daily Health Bulletin for more information on how completing a puzzle and brain health are linked, plus for a limited time get 5 free fantastic health reports. Click here for more details on this study intopuzzles and brains.

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