Although this is a meeting presentation which has not been published, it is an eye-opener.

Using data from the population-based Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, researchers found:

• Computer use late in life is associated with a lower risk of mild cognitive impairment.
• Moderate physical exercise is associated with a lower risk of mild cognitive impairment.
• The data showed that together—the computer use and the moderate exercise—that the cognitive benefits of each activity were greater when a person did both.
• However, there is not evidence to say there is a cause-and-effect relationship.

The excerpt below quotes one researcher as saying, in effect, maybe people without cognitive loss are the ones using computers while others who do have loss avoid them.

Editor’s Note

I gave my 90-year-old father, who still goes to work every day, an Apple computer. He has avoided the beige boxes which pass for computers he has in his office. I set it up and showed it to him.

“Go sit down and wait for me to ask questions. That’s how I will get it,” he said.

After about five minutes, he said, “What the hell is wrong with all of the other computer companies? I’d have been using this years and years ago!” He was already tootling around with his new machine.

Apple is noted for design that enables people to figure out functions intuitively—and that made all of the difference to him.

Avoidance of computers also may simply be frustration with their design, let’s note.

Even much younger people find the transition between the last one and a new one annoying.

Again, one cannot assign causality here, either. My study population totals 2. I have another friend I helped get online who’s older. He didn’t even have an Apple. Both of these men are very smart, still active in their fields and both swore they would never fool with the computers they had seen. They were “never!” people about computers.

If you have a friend or family member you think might like a computer, if only the first hurdles could be managed, pick the one which is most user-friendly.

No kidding, get a kid to help. They were born into a world with these machines. I have yet to find a teenager unwilling to help a much older person join the Internet club. They are in charge, for one thing. Two, this is a sharing generation when it comes to passing on computer tips and tricks.

The avoidance of computers may also be attributed to design dumbness and not cognitive loss.

No one has asked me to present my data at any annual medical meeting, let us note.

Maybe my study population needs to be bigger.That’s probably it.

(Disclosure: I own no Apple stock. I do own an Apple computer.)

Medpage Today

“Moderate physical exercise, combined with computer use late in life, is associated with a lower risk of mild cognitive impairment, a researcher said here. (Emphasis added)

“In a cross-sectional analysis of participants in an aging study, both elements were separately associated with a lower risk of the impairment, according to Yonas Geda, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

“But they also showed a significant additive interaction that created a synergistic effect, Geda reported at the annual meeting here of the American Academy of Neurology.

“On the other hand, he cautioned, it’s difficult to assign cause and effect on the basis of a cross-sectional study. For instance, Geda said, “maybe a person who can use a computer does not have cognitive issues (while) a person with cognitive issues may shy away from computers.”

“The finding of the synergistic interaction comes from the population-based Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, he said. Data from the study on the link between exercise and the risk of impairment were reported earlier this year.”

Source: Medpage Today, April 18, 2010

Citation: Meeting Presentation of the American Academy of Neurology: AAN 2010; Abstract S44.004.