I’ve seen some pretty serious critiques of those studies though. Basically it comes down to the fact that the people reading/puzzling ARE NOT THE SAME PEOPLE as the ones watching TV. So therefore comparing them and saying one activity PREVENTS dementia is a flawed analysis. It maybe more likely that people with mild dementia already don’t like doing brain-engaging activities precisely because it hurts their dementia riddled brain, whereas folks without mild dementia have brains that can tolerate intellectually stimulating challenges.
It’s often repeated, but people still ignore it all the time - correlation does not imply causation.
I’ve seen some pretty serious critiques of those studies though. Basically it comes down to the fact that the people reading/puzzling ARE NOT THE SAME PEOPLE as the ones watching TV. So therefore comparing them and saying one activity PREVENTS dementia is a flawed analysis. It maybe more likely that people with mild dementia already don’t like doing brain-engaging activities precisely because it hurts their dementia riddled brain, whereas folks without mild dementia have brains that can tolerate intellectually stimulating challenges.
It’s often repeated, but people still ignore it all the time - correlation does not imply causation.