Delaying retirement lowers risk of Alzheimer's, dementia

[photoguy]

It's easy to put down a study because of flaws and of course all studies in this area are associational and can't control statistically for every factor. But is there really any significant doubt that retirement increases risk of mental decline, alzheimers, dementia, etc?

This is a serious question -- I've not looked into this at all besides skimming the OP's study.

We have the association (assuming there are lots of independent studies that show this) and the mechanism: Use it or Lose it. So it doesn't seem like such a stretch to infer causation.

I look at myself (retired <2 years) and there's no way that my mental load is as tough as while working. Although my social interaction is good, I'm doing way less writing, reading technical papers, programming, presenting, problem solving, arguing/discussing solutions, and maybe the most taxing of all office politics.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

85? Oye!!!

I know the article (and study) is a few years old, but I wonder if it was published to make those folks who WON'T be able to retire feel better? Maybe along the lines of "Hey, I might be 80 years old and still w*rking, but at least I don't have dementia!" I know that's a stretch, but I could see it especially with the large segment of our population who have said they will work "until they die."

 

[Teacher Terry]

I have a good friend that was brilliant, had a great job but had to retire at 55 because she had Alzheimer's. Now at age 64 had to go into a home.

 

[Danmar]

Correlation is not causation,
.

Exactly!! Many so called "studies" are really only a search for correlation. The results are spurious or in some cases obvious. For example most "studies" that find that certain demographics are healthier or live longer are just reporting correlation. In many(most?) cases these correlations are to a third factor such as wealth, diet, stress, etc. It is very difficult to identify the actual causation.
Rich people live longer, smart people live longer, risk averse people live longer, married people live longer, happy people live longer. The list goes on.

 

[kcowan]

I know that my megacorp did some studies to show that people who worked until 65 died sooner than people who retired early. Fortunately they did not share these results with the pension people.

When I got a golden handshake at age 49, I took the option of an immediate reduced pension. One year later they did another offer and did not include the immediate option. I suspect they ran the same spreadsheet that I did! 24 years and counting! And we took the 100% joint survivorship option (which was quite cheap) so will continue collecting for many years to come...