Alzheimer's memory loss faster among well-educated

A new study, recently published in the journal Neurology, sheds more light on the relationship between education and Alzheimer's disease. Started in the 1980s, the study tracked almost 500 people born from 1894 and 1908; eventually 117 of them developed Alzheimer's or another dementia. Looking at these folks they found that every year of education delayed the accelerated memory decline that precedes dementia by about 2-1/2 months.

"Someone with 16 years of schooling might experience memory decline 50 percent more quickly than another person with just four years education," said Charles B. Hall, Ph.D., associate professor of epidemiology and population health at Einstein. In short, the more formal education you have, the greater your "cognitive reserve" and because of this the later the diagnosis of Alzheimer's. But once the condition begins to take hold, better-educated people decline more rapidly.

The researcher was done at Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and was reported by Reuters.