CHICAGO, April 21 (UPI) -- Staying in contact with family members and friends offers a protective effect against the damaging effects of Alzheimer's disease, find Chicago researchers.
Physicians at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago say while other studies have shown people with more extensive social networks were at reduced risk of cognitive impairment, this study is the first to examine the relations between social networks and Alzheimer's disease pathology.
Researchers studied elderly people without known dementia participating in the Rush Memory and Aging Project, an epidemiological and clinicopathological study of aging and Alzheimer's disease that involves over 1,100 volunteers across northeastern Illinois. Brain autopsies were done at the time of death and post mortem data was available for analysis from the first 89 people, according to the study published online in The Lancet Neurology.
"Many elderly people who have the tangles and plaques associated with Alzheimer's disease don't clinically experience cognitive impairment or dementia," said Bennett. "Our findings suggest that social networks are related to something that offers a 'protective reserve' capacity that spares them the clinical manifestations of Alzheimer's disease."
