Participation in Cognitively Stimulating Activities and Risk of Incident Alzheimer Disease

To test the hypothesis that frequent participation in cognitive activities is associated with a reduced risk of AD.

Longitudinal cohort study with baseline evaluations performed between January 1994 and July 2001 and mean follow-up of 4.5 years. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING: A total of 801 older Catholic nuns, priests, and brothers without dementia at enrollment, recruited from 40 groups across the United States. At baseline, they rated frequency of participation in common cognitive activities (eg, reading a newspaper), from which a previously validated composite measure of cognitive activity frequency was derived. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Clinical diagnosis of AD by a board-certified neurologist using National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke/Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association criteria and change in global and specific measures of cognitive function, compared by cognitive activity score at baseline.