Socially active and calm people less likely to develop Dementia

New York, January 20:People who are socially active and not easily stressed are much less likely to develop dementia in their old age, a new research shows.

The research, published in the Jan. 20 print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, suggests that remaining calm and relaxed may cut a person’s risk of developing dementia, which is chronic, usually progressive deterioration of intellectual functions.

Dementia is a decline in cognitive function or mental ability – thinking, reasoning and remembering. People with dementia have difficulty independently carrying out daily tasks they have performed routinely throughout their lives.

The novel study from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden studied 506 older people who did not have the aforementioned memory-robbing illness when first examined.

Researchers’ team, headed by Hui-Xin Wang, gave all the study participants questionnaires asking for details about their personality traits and lifestyle, and then tracked them for six years. Over that time, 144 volunteers developed dementia.

Wang’s team found that people who were not socially active but calm and relaxed were 50 percent less likely to develop dementia compared to those who were isolated and prone to distress.

The fading memory risk was also 50 percent lower for those who were outgoing and calm compared to those who were outgoing and prone to distress.

"In the past, studies have shown that chronic distress can affect parts of the brain, such as the hippocampus, possibly leading to dementia, but our findings suggest that having a calm and outgoing personality in combination with a socially active lifestyle may decrease the risk of developing dementia even further," says Wang.

"The good news is, lifestyle factors can be modified as opposed to genetic factors which cannot be controlled. But these are early results, so how exactly mental attitude influences risk for dementia is not clear," he said.

According to Alzheimer's Society, dementia is a term used to describe various different brain disorders that have in common a loss of brain function that is usually progressive and eventually severe.

The term is used to describe the symptoms that occur when the brain is affected by specific diseases and conditions, including Alzheimer's disease, stroke and many other rarer conditions. Symptoms of dementia include loss of memory, confusion and problems with speech and understanding.

According to Alzheimer's Society’s estimates, there are 700,000 people with dementia in the UK, and the figure is expected to rise to over one million by 2025 and 1.7 million by 2051.