Canadian scientists have revealed that having a higher education and having language skills can prevent the onset of dementia.
- Worldwide, 50 million people have dementia. Each year, nearly 10 million new cases are recorded.
- Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia and is thought to be the cause of 60 to 70% of cases.
Dementia is a slow and progressive decline in memory, reasoning, behavior and the ability to carry out daily activities. According to research published in the journal Neurology, adults with mild cognitive impairment, who have language skills and a higher education, are more likely to have their cognitive functions return to normal. These people would have less risk of suffering from dementia.
To reach this conclusion, researchers at the University of Waterloo, Canada, followed 619 healthy people for eight years. A total of 472 participants were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment during the study. Of these 472 volunteers, 143, or 30.3%, regained normal cognitive functions and 120 (83.9%) never developed dementia.
A reduction in the risk of dementia thanks to a high level of education
“Even after controlling for age and genetics – established risk factors for dementia – we found that higher levels of education doubled the chances that people with mild cognitive impairment would regain normal cognition at instead of progressing to dementia”, said Suzanne Tyas, a professor at the University of Waterloo and lead author of the work, in a statement.
According to the results, language skills, whether reflected in high marks in English at school or in grammatically complex writing, also prevented dementia. “Having a high cognitive reserve — based on education, high school grades, and written language skills — can predict what happens years after a person is diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment. “added the researcher.
Reassuring results
According to the scientists, these results could reassure people with mild cognitive impairment, as they contradict the assumption that this disorder is simply an early stage of dementia. “We can’t do much about age and genetics, so it’s encouraging that our results show that there are other ways to reduce the risk of dementia, such as building up cognitive reserve through ‘education and language skills earlier in life’, said Suzanne Tyas.
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