Further education helps reduce memory loss: study

LONDON: Education improves a person's ability to cope with the physical effects of dementia, research shows. People who go on to university or college after leaving school appear to be less affected by brain changes associated with dementia than those who cease education early, say scientists. But their brains are just as likely to suffer the neurological breakdown that gives rise to the disease. Dementia, which causes memory loss and confused thinking, affects more than 800,000, mostly older people, in the UK. More than half have Alzheimer's, the most common form of the disease. For each additional year of education there is an estimated 11 per cent reduced risk of developing dementia. The new research involved examining the brains of 872 participants in Eclipse (Epidemiological Clinicopathalogical Studies in Europe), a collaboration between three large population-based studies of ageing. Of the donors, 56 per cent were suffering from dementia when they died, the scientists reported. Once again an association was found between more education and less risk of dementia symptoms. But surprisingly, education appeared to have no impact on levels of dementia-associated brain damage.