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What is this?Education delays memory loss
on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 The onset of memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia is delayed depending on the number of years of formal education a person has. But once the condition strikes, the deterioration is more rapid in people who are better educated.
The study, published in the journal Neurology, finds that each year of education delayed memory decline by about two and the half years, but once the memory loss started, the decline was four per cent quicker for each additional year of education. A person with sixteen years of formal education might experience memory loss fifty percent faster than someone with only four years of education.
The reason behind this discrepancy, according to Charles Hall, professor of epidemiology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, US, who led the study, is that people who are better educated have a greater ‘cognitive reserve’, which enables them to function effectively in spite of their brain damage. But once the symptoms are presented, the decline is rapid because the diagnosis has been delayed.
