20 Jul Daily Crossword Puzzles May Help Sustain Brain Function As We Age
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Prof. Wesnes
Professor Keith A. Wesnes
BSc PhD FSS CPsychol FBPsS
Head Honcho, Wesnes Cognition Ltd
Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, Medical School, University of Exeter, UK
Visiting Professor, Department of Psychology
Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK
Adjunct Professor, Centre for Human Psychopharmacology, Swinburne University, Melbourne, Australia
Visiting Professor, Medicinal Plant Research Group
Newcastle University, UK
Wesnes Cognition Ltd, Little Paddock, Streatley Hill, Streatley on Thames UK
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: This data we reported were taken from the PROTECT study, a 10-year research programme being conducted jointly by Kings College London and the University of Exeter Medical School. It started in November 2015 and over 20,000 individuals aged 50 to 96 years have enrolled.
A highly novel feature of the study is that it is run entirely remotely, the participants logging on via the internet at home and providing demographic and life style information, and also performing online cognitive tasks of key aspects of cognitive function. The tasks are from two well-validated systems, CogTrack and the PROTECT test system, and assess major aspects of cognitive function including focused and sustained attention, information processing, reasoning and a range of aspects of memory.
One of the lifestyle questions was ‘How frequently do you engage in word puzzles, e.g. crosswords?’ and the 6 possible answers were: never; occasionally; monthly; weekly; daily; more than once per day. We analysed the cognitive data from 17,677 individuals who had answered the question, and found that the more often the participants reported engaging in such puzzles, the better their cognitive function on each of the 9 cognitive tasks they performed. The group who never performed such puzzles were poorest on all measures, and the improvements were mostly incremental as the frequency of use increased. The findings were highly statistically reliable, and we controlled for factors including age, gender and education. To evaluate the magnitudes of these benefits, we calculated the average decline over the age-range on the various tasks in the study population. The average difference between those who ‘never’ did puzzles to those who did so ‘more than once a day’ was equivalent to 11 years of ageing; and between those who never did puzzles and all those who did was 8 years.
MedicalResearch.com: What should clinicians and patients take away from your report?
Response: Lifestyle is becoming recognised to play a major role in healthy cognitive ageing, and these data strongly suggest that engaging in word puzzles helps sustain cognitive function as we age. The improvements could be due to enhanced blood flow to the CNS certain areas in the brain as well as enhanced activity in neuronal cells. The term ‘use it or lose it’ could well apply here.
MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Response: We are planning to follow this up in prospective study by getting the participants of PROTECT to engage in different types of games, and at different frequencies, in order to determine the extent to which this produces enhancements to important aspects of cognitive function relevant to everyday life.
MedicalResearch.com: Thank you for your contribution to the MedicalResearch.com community.
Citation:
Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) 2017 poster:
Monday, July 17, 2017:
The Relationship Between the Frequency of Word Puzzle Use and Cognitive Function in a Large Sample of Adults Aged 50 to 96 Years
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Last Updated on July 20, 2017 by Marie Benz MD FAAD