Mental Activity and the Community Risk for Dementia

Project Outlines and Aims

Epidemiological research by our group strongly supports a link between high mental activity and a reduced risk for dementia – commonly referred to as Brain Reserve. In one of our studies, we combined the results of 22 international population-based reports, bringing together results from over 29,000 individuals. We found that those with higher levels of mental activity had a 46% reduction in risk for developing dementia over an average follow-up time of 7 years.

We have replicated these results in a separate meta-analysis which showed that high mental activity also reduced the rate of cognitive slowing with age, supporting the previous result.

Our group has therefore been interested in measuring older people’s lifetime level of mental activities more accurately. To this end we have developed the Lifetime of Experiences Questionnaire (LEQ). We have shown that higher scores on the LEQ predict not only slower cognitive decline over time, but also a slower rate of brain shrinkage.

We are now collecting population norms for the LEQ in collaboration with other groups. Click here if you would like to complete the LEQ online now. Our aim is to further refine the LEQ into a brief clinical instrument whilst conserving its high predictive validity.

Staff

Dr Michael Valenzuela (chief investigator)
Professor Perminder Sachdev

Collaborators

Ms Nicola Gates (Director, HeadStrong)

Students

Mr Chao Suo (University of New South Wales)
Ms Irene Leon (Univerisity of Almeria, Spain)