Doctor’s Diary
Why crosswords are crucial for mental health
Paediatricians are reluctant to ‘struggle officiously to keep alive’ those like Charlie Gard
For more than 90 years, Telegraph readers have sharpened their wits tussling with the mixed bag of riddles, anagrams and cryptic definitions of the daily crossword. It is no surprise to learn this should have been shown, as claimed by Professor Keith Wesnes from Exeter University last week, to boost “the speed and accuracy of performance of cognitive tasks including attention, reasoning and memory”.
He was more cautious as to whether a crossword a day should keep the dreaded intellectual deterioration of dementia at bay – but this would seem to be the case, as demonstrated a decade ago in a study of the effects of ageing on elderly residents in New York. For the 15 per cent who were regular crossword puzzlers, the early symptoms of “accelerated mental decline” were delayed, on average, by two and a half years.
This might seem a modest enough benefit, but an additional two-plus years of near-normal mental functioning towards the end of life is a big deal. It is attributed to the phenomenon of “cognitive reserve” where regular exercising of the mind compensates for the loss of neurones and shrinkage of the brain typical of dementing conditions.
And for those who have never got the hang of crosswords, there are now a host of brain-training programmes that can be downloaded on to the mobile or ipad: Lumosity (“improves your working memory”), Fit Brains Trainer (“enhances your memory, focus and brain speed”), and Cognifit, designed by neuroscientists that includes a cognitive assessment and “allows you to track your progress”. Search online and check them out.
Harrowing account
This week, it is to be hoped, the courts will rule in favour of the doctors at Great Ormond Street Hospital, bringing 11-month-old Charlie Gard’s physical ordeal, paralysed and brain damaged by a rare genetic disorder, to a close. Over the past 30 years, the sophisticated technology of neonatal intensive care has saved the lives of many babies who would otherwise have perished. But the harrowing account by parents Robert and Peggy Stinson of the fate of their son, Andrew, is a cautionary reminder of the terrible suffering it can cause.
“Andrew was ‘saved’ by the respirator, to endure countless episodes of bradycardia and cyanosis, countless suctions, tube insertions and blood samplings; ‘saved’ to develop numerous infections, demineralised and fractured bones and seizures of the brain… By the time he was allowed to die, five painful months later, the technology used to salvage him had produced a grotesque caricature of a human life, a ‘person’ with deteriorating brain and scarcely an undamaged vital organ in his body, who existed only as the extension of a machine.”
Having witnessed such catastrophes, paediatricians nowadays are understandably reluctant to “struggle officiously to keep alive” those like Charlie, in whom there is no reasonable chance of recovery. Parents should be guided by their advice.
Forced to sit down
This week’s medical conundrum comes courtesy of Mrs TC from Leeds, in her late seventies (though her husband, impressively, has just made his century), whose mobility has been “a bit dodgy” for the past few years.
She can get around standing or walking for about 20 minutes, when her legs suddenly “weaken”, forcing her to sit down. But she only needs to rest for a minute or so and then can carry on as before.
Her neurologist can find nothing seriously amiss with Mrs TC (no muscle-wasting, reflexes okay) other than mild unsteadiness of gait, while her brain scan was essentially normal, other than showing some “small vessel cerebral vascular disease”. Any suggestions would be most welcome.