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Dec. 19, 2006 -- Brief mental training sessions can slow age-related mental decline, a U.S. study shows.
The finding comes from a five-year study of more than 2,800 Americans aged 65 to 94.
Researchers at six U.S. institutions gave these seniors a brief series of "cognitive training" sessions. The training was short -- just 10, one-hour sessions for most participants, with eight booster sessions for some.
But the benefits lasted at least five years, says study researcher Michael Marsiske, PhD, of the University of Florida.
"If you have any concerns you cannot learn new things late in life, put those away," Marsiske tells WebMD. "If people put effort into learning new and challenging things after age 65, they can grow in performance. And they can maintain those gains."
It's an elegantly designed study, says Sally A. Shumaker, PhD, professor of public health science and associate dean of research at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C.
Shumaker was not involved in the study. Her editorial accompanies the report from Marsiske and colleagues in the Dec. 20 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.
"The general note here is that we need to stay mentally active, just as we need to stay physically active," Shumaker tells WebMD. "I can imagine a time when, in public libraries and senior centers, there will be computers you can sit at and do this training every other day or so and slow the process of normal cognitive agingaging."