Can Playing Cards Keep Your Mind Sharp? Study Shows Risk of Dementia is Reduced in Chinese Older Adults

Published on August 22, 2022

Imagine your brain is a muscle, and playing cards or mahjong is like lifting weights for that muscle. A new study on Chinese older adults has found that frequently engaging in these cognitive stimulation activities can actually lower the risk of developing dementia. The study followed over 11,800 participants for a period of 10 years, and it discovered that those who played cards or mahjong almost every day had a significantly lower risk of dementia compared to those who rarely or never played. What’s more, this association held true for both men and women, as well as across different age groups and levels of physical exercise. The findings suggest that keeping your mind active with these games may be a simple yet effective way to protect against dementia. So next time you gather around the table for a friendly game of cards or mahjong, remember that you’re not only having fun, but also giving your brain a workout! If you want to learn more about this fascinating study and its implications, check out the full article.

Objectives: Studies have shown that the frequent participation of the elderly in cognitive stimulation activities is associated with a reduced risk of dementia, but the prospective evidence of this association is limited.Methods: We used data from a prospective cohort study of the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey (CLHLS), and included 11,821 community-living Chinese individuals aged 65 years or older at 2008 baseline who were free of dementia, and were followed up every 2–3 years until 2018. Cox proportional hazards models were applied to generate the hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for analyzing the associations between the frequency of playing cards/mahjong and the incidence of dementia.Results: A total of 821 participants were diagnosed with dementia during the 10-year follow-up. The average age of patients with dementia and non dementia were 89 and 90 years old, respectively. Compared with participants who rarely or never played cards/mahjong, participants who played cards/mahjong almost every day had a significantly lower risk of dementia (HR = 0.63; 95%CI, 0.42–0.95) after the multivariable-adjusted model. Similar results were observed in subgroup analyses based on sex (male: HR = 0.52, 0.28–0.96; female: HR = 0.62, 0.36–0.98), age (<85years: HR = 0.55, 0.32–0.89), regularly exercise (yes: HR = 0.44, 0.28–0.87) and MMSE score [above median (25): HR = 0.66, 0.41–0.92].Conclusions: Playing cards/mahjong in the elderly may contribute to reducing the risk of dementia.

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