SAVE YOUR BRAIN – BALLROOM DANCE!

SAVE YOUR BRAIN – BALLROOM DANCE!

by Archie Hazelwood of usabda.org

The Einstein Aging Study, summarized in the June 19, 2003 New England Journal of Medicine, found that ballroom dancing helps prevent dementia. Dementia in the study refers to both Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia. Vascular dementia is the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s. The study included participants in six brain-stimulating hobbies – reading, writing for pleasure, doing puzzles, board games or playing cards, group discussions and playing music. The study also included participants in 11 physical activities including team sports, swimming, bicycling and dance. Dance was the only physical activity that benefited the brain. This was attributed to the cerebral rather than the physical aspect of dance. Researchers found that the relationship between the mind- stimulating effects of ballroom dancing, as well as in the above six types of hobbies, and the lowered risk of dementia remained strong even after they allowed for variables such as age, sex and education. Frequency of activity also was important! Subjects with scores in the highest third on the cognitive- activity scale had a risk of dementia that was 63 percent lower than that among subjects in the lowest third. We believe this emphasizes the importance of engaging in a regular program of ballroom dancing. The need to learn and remember numerous dance movements produces a constant and very beneficial challenge to the brain. The social aspects of ballroom dancing, the relaxation it produces and the joy of dancing also is involved. The sense of accomplishment and confidence acquired by successfully completing a dance with a partner are beneficial, as well. Fitness, both mental and physical, often begins with one’s state of mind. Mental acuity comes from mental exercise and if you’re ballroom dancing, you’re not sitting at home watching TV or feeling sorry for yourself. This applies to every one of all ages. Among mind-stimulating activities ballroom dancing is unique in that it also provides beneficial physical exercise. Many people have gotten the message. That’s why we see increasing numbers of people of all ages having the time of their lives on dance floors all over the country. They are receiving a double payoff, mental and physical.

Dancing Seniors Duck Dementia!

Better Health: Benefits of Dancing
by Judith Paley, MD
The latest shortcuts to better health include dancing. If you’d sooner sit at Starbucks than go to the gym, read on below.

Dancing seniors duck dementia!

New York researchers are decreasing their risk of dementia by puzzling over 21 years of data on the daily activities of elderly residents of the Bronx. Doctors at Albert Einstein School of Medicine have come up with a mathematical equation relating “activity-days” with a decreased risk of losing one’s marbles, assuring researchers and old folks alike that their ongoing mental activity will pay off in extra years with agile brains.

This isn’t the first study that supports the “use it or lose it” theory of successful aging. However, it is the first one to follow the mental condition of the aged over a prolonged period of time. Shorter studies could not answer the question of which came first, the dementia or the inactivity. Scientists wondered if those persons who developed Alzheimer’s following years of decreased leisure time activity might not have suffered from the disease all along, which thus affected their ability to participate in challenging hobbies. Since testing demonstrates that cognitive deficits associated with dementia can be detected seven years before the official diagnosis, this study, conducted over two decades, eliminates the possibility that preclinical Alzheimer’s predated all those sit-and-do-nothing days.

Nearly five hundred old folks in the Bronx dutifully filled out questionnaires on their leisure time activities. These were categorized as cognitive activities (e.g. reading books, doing crossword puzzles, playing board games, or playing musical instruments) or physical activities (such as playing tennis or golf, swimming, dancing, or walking for exercise). One “activity-days per week” point was given for participating in any physical or cognitive activity on one day each week. Participants could earn a maximum score of 42 for daily mental pursuits (6 possible activities times 7 days) and 77 points for exercise activities (11 activities times 7 days). Except for dancing, the physical activities proved good for the heart but no boost to the brain.
On the other hand, a one-point increase in the cognitive-activity score resulted in a directly proportionate decrease in dementia risk. For example, a senior working crossword puzzles four times weekly was 47% less likely to become permanently puzzled compared to a colleague who just completed the puzzle in the Sunday edition.

While the authors agree that there are still more questions than answers on the subject of mental activity and Alzheimer’s protection, an accompanying editorial to the study in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine notes: “Seniors should be encouraged to read, play board games, and go ballroom dancing, because these activities, at the very least, enhance their quality of life, and they just might do more than that.”