What if older people who volunteered to work in elementary schools, in a program that bolstered educational progress for children, could at the same time reduce their own risk of cognitive decline? Talk about a win-win.
In a small but intriguing study recently published in The Journal of Gerontology, a team led by the Johns Hopkins neuropsychologist Michelle Carlson used cognitive tests and brain imaging scans to measure the effects that working in Baltimore public schools had on eight female volunteers.
Michelle Carlson, a neuropsychologist at Johns Hopkins University.The women, with an average age of 67, were at risk for cognitive impairment; they had low income and education levels and had scored poorly on the much-used Mini-Mental State Examination. The volunteers completed 32 hours of training in the program, called Experience Corps, then worked 15 hours a week assisting classroom teachers and librarians, reading to students, shelving and recommending books and leading conflict resolution lessons.
After six months in the schools, the women underwent another round of cognitive testing. “Their performance improved by over 40 percent,” Dr. Carlson said in an interview. The gains also were seen in M.R.I. scans showing the women’s brain activity. “They showed immediate and measurable positive changes,” she said.
Something about the combination of varied and demanding tasks and social engagement benefited the volunteers, compared with a control group of similar women who did not volunteer.
Losing executive function — the ability to focus on tasks and make sound judgments — is one of the major reasons old people find themselves unable to maintain an independent household and are often forced to move in with family or into institutions.
“It’s so important to day-to-day life,” Dr. Carlson said of these cognitive skills.
Finding a way to preserve them would be enough to make gerontologists dance with glee.
Images of the brains of volunteers show increased activity in areas marked in blue.
As the researchers try to replicate these findings with a much larger group, Dr. Carlson emphasized something we are already coming to understand: the brain has plasticity. It can change and develop, even at advanced ages, and we are learning more about how to encourage the changes we want and discourage those we don’t.
Simply reading to one’s grandchildren probably would not have the same effect as school mentoring — few old people spent 15 hours a week at it, and it is not as complex or demanding as working with other team members in classrooms and libraries. But other kinds of stimulating, engaging tasks might produce similar payoffs, even if they don’t improve urban schoolchildren’s reading.
As the research evolves, perhaps we baby boomers will gravitate to endeavors like Experience Corps, which has taken root in more than 20 American cities, and be less inclined to seek a magic pill like ginko biloba, which Dr. Carlson has also researched and in a big multiyear study has found to be of no appreciable value in preventing cognitive decline.
The bottom line from Dr. Carlson is this: “Our bodies are meant to move. And our brains are built for novelty.”
Paula Span is the author of “When the Time Comes: Families With Aging Parents Share Their Struggles and Solutions.”
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