To cut through the suspense the answer is yes. If you look at two individuals of the same age, the person who retired early will show greater cognitive decline than the person who retired later. However, there are a couple things one can do to help partially offset the decline (that don’t involve returning to work), and this finding does not mean early retirement causes dementia. First, a little background.

It has been known for many years that our ability to remember things and process information-called our fluid mental abilities-gets worse as we age. While there is some evidence that certain Nootropic supplements may help prevent this decrease in cognitive decline, age will inevitably impact a person’s mental agility. The drop-off is typically mild for years, but then usually accelerates sometime in our seventies. Since the decline occurs in years associated with retirement, there have been some researchers suggesting that the act of retirement causes the decline, but others say no, it is simply an age-related coincidence. A recent study by Celidoni, Dal Bianco and Weber separated out the other variables to focus solely on how mental function was affected by the time spent in retirement. Their chief finding was that the number of years spent in retirement increased the decline in fluid mental abilities. In other words, if you looked at two 75-year-old individuals who were identical, with the difference being one had retired at age 62 and the other at age 69, the individual who had retired at age 62 would be worse at remembering things and processing information.

As life expectancy has increased, the issue of age-related mental decline leading to dementia has become more prominent. The Plassman studies (2007, 2008) found that while few people in their sixties suffered from cognitive impairment, more than half of people in their eighties are impaired. This knowledge has resulted in increased anxiety over protecting our own mental prowess and resulted in the appearance of many pop-psych books and self-anointed cognitive gurus claiming one can stop mental decline by eating or not eating certain foods, taking particular pills, and doing certain brain exercises. Sadly, almost none of this has been proven to work.

This new study did reinforce the notion that engaging in regular physical activity appears to slow down the decline. Indeed, engaging in any regular ongoing daily activities worked to maintain cognitive abilities. However, even these activities did not fully offset the negative effects of early retirement. The study indicated-but couldn’t prove-that retirement lifestyle is a factor. Those who led low stress retirement lives seemed to have lower rates of decline.

The big takeaway from the study is don’t retire-at least not early-if you want to maximize retention of your mental power. The others are to exercise regularly and create a daily routine of doing things so you’re not simply watching television all day. A final point is don’t get too hung up on all of this. Your fluid intelligence has been declining for decades, but during this time you’ve been gaining knowledge, also called crystallized intelligence. What this means is that while it may take you longer to process data, and you may need to make more notes to yourself so you don’t forget, you can still make good decisions and enjoy life regardless of your age.

References:

Martina Celidoni, M.C. Dal Bianco and G. Weber. (2013). Early retirement and cognitive decline.

A longitudinal analysis using SHARE data. Marco Fanno. WP N174

Plassman et al. (2008). Prevalence of cognitive impairment without dementia in the United States. Annals of Internal Medicine. 148, 6: 427-434

Plassman et al. (2007). Prevalence of dementia in the United States: The Aging, Demographics, and Memory Study. Neuroepidemiology. 29: 125-132

Jack Marrion

Jack Marrion provides research and consulting services to insurance companies and financial firms in a variety of annuity areas. He also serves as director of research for the National Association for Fixed Annuities and as a research fellow for Webster University.

In 1994 he wrote a book to help banks market investment and insurance solutions to their small business clients. In 1996 he produced the first independent hypothetical return monthly publication comparing all index annuities on the market, and in 1997 created the first comprehensive report of index annuity sales, products and trends, “Advantage Index Product Sales & Market Report” (quarterly).

His insights on the annuity and retirement income world have appeared in hundreds of publications. In 2006 the National Association of Insurance Commissioners asked him to address their annual meeting and teach regulators the realities of index annuities. He was invited back in 2009 to talk to the NAIC about the effects of aging on senior decision-making. He is a frequent speaker at industry functions.

Prior to forming Advantage Com­pen­dium, Marrion was president and owner of an NASD broker/dealer with offices in nine states. Previous to that he was vice president of a life insurance company and vice president of an NYSE investment banking firm. He has a BBA from the University of Iowa, an MBA from the University of Missouri, and a doctorate from Webster University.

Marrion can be reached at Ad­van­­tage Compendium. Telephone: 314-255-6531. Email: ­[email protected].