Decades later, brain training lowers dementia risk

Beginning in the late 1990s, nearly 3,000 older adults received brain training as part of a study to evaluate the training's effect on thinking and memory. Twenty years later, participants continued to reap the benefits.

In the latest follow-up from the Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly, or ACTIVE, study, investigators report that participants who received cognitive speed training, plus booster sessions one and three years later, were 25% less likely to be diagnosed with dementia in the next two decades.

Researchers say it is one of the first results from a large randomized, controlled trial to demonstrate that any intervention, whether it is cognitive training, brain games, physical exercise, diet or drugs, can lower the incidence of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. Findings appear in the journal Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research and Clinical Interventions.

Previous studies of the ACTIVE training had shown participants maintaining improvements at five and 10 years after training, but seeing benefits this long-lasting was a surprise even to Michael Marsiske, Ph.D., one of six study principal investigators and a professor and interim co-chair of the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of Florida College of Public Health and Health Professions.