Helping others for a good memory

Researchers from the University of Texas and Boston analysed data from a long-term study, The U.S. Health and Retirement Study, which collected data from 31,303 adults between 1998 and 2020 (aged 50 and older, with an average age between 60 and 70 years). They examined how often these people helped others outside their own household and compared those data with changes in their memory and thinking ability. They conducted a complex association analysis, which showed that people who frequently helped others also had good memory and thinking ability later in life. Cognitive decline due to ageing also appeared to progress more slowly in the group that helped others during their lives. This difference proved to be substantial when the data were compared with a group that was less socially active. These findings support the idea that helping others ensures that people remain cognitively engaged, feel connected to other people, and experience meaning and purpose by supporting others.

Maintaining social life

The study also shows that the positive effects of helping others must be maintained, because once people stopped helping others, their cognitive decline due to ageing progressed similarly to that of the group that never helped. It therefore appears that social behaviour must be maintained and that one must continue helping others in order to benefit later in life.
It also appeared that the type of help provided did not matter, that is: organised volunteering or informal help, both forms of help were equally effective for preserving cognition in the helper. Providing a moderate amount of help (people who helped others two to four hours per week) proved to offer the most consistent cognitive benefits for the helper. On the other hand, excessive burden on informal caregivers and stress had counterproductive effects. In short, helping others was most effective in remaining cognitively healthy later in life when it took place continuously, at a moderate level, and was not stressful or overwhelming for the person providing help.

This study does not yet demonstrate that having more social interactions and helping others directly leads to better memory or improved brain functioning, but it does show that people who are socially active throughout their lives still have some cognitive reserve later in life.

It is therefore not without reason that the WHO identifies the absence of social interaction as one of the modifiable risk factors that can increase the risk of developing dementia later in life (Livingston Lancet 2024).