Watching TV could increase seniors' risk of dementia, study says - The Washington Post

2 years ago 31

How older adults walk their sedentary clip — what they bash portion sitting — makes a quality successful their chances of processing dementia, according to research published successful the diary Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It recovered that those whose clip sitting was chiefly spent watching tv had a 24 percent accrued hazard for dementia, whereas those who spent that clip connected a machine had a 15 percent reduced hazard for dementia. The researchers explained that TV watching is cognitively passive, meaning small reasoning is required, portion machine usage is cognitively active, meaning it (like reading) is much intellectually stimulating.

For some groups of survey participants, their likelihood of processing dementia linked to their sitting persisted, nary substance however physically progressive they were astatine different times of the day. Previous studies person pointed to physical exercise arsenic beneficial to reducing hazard for cognitive diminution and dementia.

Dementia, which is not considered a mean portion of aging, is an umbrella word utilized to picture a acceptable of symptoms — representation loss, confusion, problems with connection and reasoning, and behavioral changes — that advancement implicit clip and impact a person’s regular beingness and activities. Alzheimer’s illness is the astir communal benignant of dementia. Today, astir 6 cardinal radical successful the United States person Alzheimer’s and related dementias — astir older than 65 and much women than men — and the fig is expected to summation to 14 cardinal by 2060, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The caller probe progressive 146,651 adults 60 and older who did not person dementia erstwhile the survey began. After tracking for astir a twelve years, 3,507 participants had been diagnosed with dementia.

As the researchers concluded, “reducing cognitively passive [sedentary behaviors] similar TV watching and expanding cognitively progressive [ones] similar machine use, by adjacent a tiny amount, whitethorn person an important interaction connected dementia hazard successful individuals, careless of their engagement successful carnal activity.”

This nonfiction is portion of The Post’s “Big Number” series, which takes a little look astatine the statistical facet of wellness issues. Additional accusation and applicable probe are disposable done the hyperlinks.

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