Stay active to halt memory loss, OAPs told

MEMORY loss accelerates rapidly after retirement, a 30-year study suggests.

Scientists tested 3,400 retired civil servants and found that their shortterm recall declined 38 per cent faster than those still working.

The study authors from University College London and Kings College London said their work ‘highlighted the benefits of stimulating work activities that benefit older people’s memory’. They said the ‘use it or lose it’ message was crucial for pensioners wanting to preserve their mental powers.

Professor Cary Cooper, an expert in organisational psychology at Manchester Business School, said: ‘We know the more cognitively active you are, the more it offsets the risk of dementia.

‘I’m not talking about sudoku but doing something completely different from your job. If you worked in the civil service all your life, why not go and help out in a hospital, or teach?’

Volunteers in the Whitehall II study had memory tests over a 30-year period covering the final part of their careers and the early years of retirement.

The results were published online in the European Journal of Epidemiology.