Avoid dementia by chilling out and mingling

William Atkins
Tuesday, 20 January 2009 17:40

Science - Health

A Swedish study published in the journal Neurology on January 20, 2009 states that people are less likely to develop dementia if they are social animals and stay calm in difficult circumstances.


The article “Personality and lifestyle in relation to dementia incidence” was published in the January 20, 2009 issue of Neurology, a journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The authors include H.-X. Wang, A. Karp, A. Herlitz, M. Crowe, I. KÃ¥reholt, B. Winblad, and L. Fratiglioni, all from the Aging Research Center, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.

The researchers’ objective was to learn if extraversion (or an “active/socially integrated lifestyle”) and neuroticism (or a stressed out condition) were in combination or separately associated with a greater risk for dementia.

According to the AAN media release “Socially Active and Not Easily Stressed? You May Not Develop Dementia,” the researchers studied 506 elderly people (who were already taking part in the Kungsholmen Project from Stockholm, Sweden) who did not have any signs of dementia when the study first began.

The researchers used the DSM-III-R critieria to diagnose whether dementia was present or not in the people.

The researchers then followed up with these people for an additional six years.

During this period, 144 people out of the 506 participants developed dementia.

Page two describes what the participants were asked during the study.