Commentary: Activity each day keeps dementia away—does social interaction really preserve cognitive function?

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Abstract
Glei et al.1 observe that reported social activities are inversely related to decline in Mental Status Questionnaire scores in a cohort of 2387 elderly Taiwanese followed-up for 11 years. This is consistent with other studies and extends the observational evidence to an East Asian, albeit industrialized, population. These observations are usually taken as support for the ‘use it or lose it’ hypothesis but could it really be that the social or intellectual function of playing ‘mahjong’ or ‘bingo’ is to defer cognitive decline?

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