Higher education and language skills may help ward off dementia

People with mild cognitive impairment may not inevitably develop dementia By New research has found that people with mild cognitive impairment may not inevitably develop dementia and, in fact, having higher education and advanced language skills more than doubles  their chances of returning to normal. The study, led by researchers at the University of Waterloo, may reassure those with mild cognitive impairment as it contradicts a common assumption that the condition is simply an early stage of dementia. People with mild cognitive impairment show signs of cognitive decline, but not enough to prevent them from performing typical daily tasks. They have been considered at higher risk of progressing to the more severe cognitive decline seen in dementia. "Possessing high cognitive reserve - based on education, high academic grades, and written language skills - may predict what happens years after someone receives a diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment," said Suzanne Tyas , a professor in the School of Public Health Sciences at Waterloo and lead author. "Even after considering age and genetics - established risk factors for dementia - we found that higher levels of education more than doubled the chances that people with mild cognitive impairment would return to normal cognition instead of progressing to dementia." The study also found that language skills, whether reflected in high grades in English in school or in strong writing that was grammatically complex and full of ideas, were also protective.