Study finds mentally stimulating work plays key role in preventing dementia | Science

Consider yourself lucky if your job is a constant series of mentally taxing challenges, bursts of creativity, and delicate negotiations to keep the troops happy.

Researchers have found that the more you use your mind at work, the better you seem to be protected from age-related thinking and memory problems.

A study of more than 7,000 Norwegians in 305 occupations found that those in the least mentally demanding jobs had a 66% higher risk of developing mild cognitive impairment after age 70 and were less likely to develop dementia. It was found that the risk of becoming infected was 31% higher. The most mentally taxing role.

“This really shows how important work is,” said Dr. Trine Edwin, a geriatrician and postdoctoral researcher at Oslo University Hospital. “It's important to go to work and use your head, and to use your head to learn new things.”

Edwin and her colleagues investigated the cognitive complexity of different jobs based on the amount of daily physical and mental labor and the degree of analytical and interpersonal tasks.

Although most people held jobs with similar cognitive demands throughout their 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s, this meant that those who started working in less mentally stimulating jobs , meaning that people who start out in cognitively challenging positions are just as likely to stay in those jobs.

From age 70 onwards, volunteers took standard memory and thinking tests and were classified as having no cognitive impairment, mild cognitive impairment, or dementia. Among those who had the most cognitively challenging jobs, 42% were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment, compared to just 27% of those who had the most cognitively stimulating jobs.

According to , the jobs ranked as the most exciting were teachers and university lecturers. research in neurology. Jobs that required the least cognitive ability were those that involved repetitive manual labor, such as road construction, cleaning, and delivering mailboxes.

Previous studies have shown that education has a significant protective effect against cognitive decline in old age. One reason is that people with better education are more likely to live healthier lives; However, education also Build “cognitive reserve” – The ability to improvise and find different ways to do things – this may help prevent mental decline. Physical exercise slows frailty.

High levels of education accounted for about 60% of the protective effect seen among people in mentally stimulating jobs, Trine said. “This means that education is very important, but it's also about subsequent behavior, how you use your brain at work. By being cognitively active, you can “It increases your cognitive reserve,” she said.

The results suggest that people who spend their working lives in mentally unstimulating jobs may benefit from further education and pursuing cognitively challenging pastimes outside of work. are doing. “It's not doomed or impossible. We can empower people to maintain cognitive health later in life through cognitively stimulating education and challenges,” Trine said. Told.

Professor Gil Livingstone, professor of geriatric psychiatry at University College London, said the results were consistent with other research into the effects of work. “It's not just that educated people do more cognitively stimulating work; they actually do. Cognitive stimulation at work through problem solving and new situations can be effective in itself. brings about.

“Most people work many hours over many years, so this is a huge cognitive stimulus,” she says. But work may not have as much of an impact as education, she added, because children and young people's brains can change more than adults' to increase their cognitive reserves.