One of the main health problems in the elderly is diseases. neurodegenerative like dementia. But there are numerous medical advances and studies that help avoid it.
One of these recent studies points to a simple hobby that reduces the possibility of people suffering from dementia: surfing the internet.
In 2011, researchers from the Faculty of Medicine of the Zhejiang University in Hangzhou (China) began following more than 12,000 people aged 45 and older who did not have dementia. They were periodically tested to see how much time they spent on the Internet and to look for signs of dementia.
The results, now published in the Journal of Medical Internet Researchshowed that, during the following decade, only 2.2% of regular internet users developed dementia, compared with 5.3% of non-users.
And the preventive effect seemed slightly stronger with smart phones than with laptops, possibly because they are used more frequently to access the web.
Scientists believe that processing the enormous amounts of information we find on the Internet can benefit people’s brain, while the use of social networks can help combat loneliness, now recognized as one of the main risk factors for the disease.
The authors wrote: “Internet use has the potential to slow age-related cognitive decline. May improve attention and psychomotor skills and increase cognitive reserve, or it may be that there is a sense of belonging created by online activities.”
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