Staying engaged in volunteering and other activities can help older people keep their cognitive abilities high.
A new study presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference 2023 in Amsterdam by UC Davis Health reveals that volunteering in late life is linked to better cognitive function, specifically improved executive function and episodic memory.
Let's find out more.
The research on how volunteering helps older people
The study examined 2,475 older adults from diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds in the Kaiser Healthy Aging and Diverse Life Experiences Study and the Study of Healthy Aging in African Americans.
The findings indicate that older adults who engaged in volunteer activities, supporting educational, religious, health-related, or charitable organizations, demonstrated better baseline scores on tests of executive function and verbal episodic memory.
The positive association remained even after adjusting for various factors such as age, sex, education, income, and interview mode.
While the study did not reach statistical significance, there was a trend suggesting that volunteering could be related to less cognitive decline over the follow-up period of 1.2 years.
How it might help
The researchers believe that volunteering provides physical activity, social interaction, and cognitive stimulation, which may be protective for the brain.
They recommend that individuals of all ages and backgrounds engage in local volunteering not only to benefit their communities but potentially their own cognitive and brain health.
