Editorial: Keeping mentally fit

Sunday, Dec. 24, 2006 | 7:20 a.m.

If a Sudoku or crossword puzzle book is in Grandma or Grandpa's stocking, chances are they are receiving a few extra years of mental fitness.

Results of a recent study, done by Penn State University and paid for in part by the National Institute on Aging, showed that people 65 and older who, over a five- to six-week period, engaged in 10 hourlong sessions of steady intellectual work remained more mentally fit than people who did not spend time reading, doing crossword puzzles or other brain work.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association on Wednesday, is considered "the toughest test to date" of the theory that working one's brain is as important as working one's body, Jeff Elias, the aging institute chief, told USA Today last week. Declining mental capacity is projected to affect 84 million people worldwide by 2040, the research concluded.

The five-year study's 3,000 participants were tested before and after being randomly assigned to six-week workouts in quick mental processing, reasoning or memory work. Of those, 1,877 completed the entire five-year program and were offered refresher training one year later and three years later.

Participants completed such tasks as looking for patterns in daily life, such as bus schedules, identifying items flashed on a computer screen and organizing lengthy grocery lists into categories. Improvements in participants' mental agility lasted throughout the study's five-year period and lasted longer for those who had the refresher courses.

Maybe curling up with that Sunday crossword puzzle isn't so lazy after all.