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Keeping your brain active in later life could delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease by as much as five years.
This includes playing board games and card games, doing puzzles, reading and writing letters.
A study asked almost 2,000 older people how long they had spent doing these and similar activities in the previous year.
Among those who went on to get dementia, people who spent most time keeping their brain active developed the disease at the age of 93 on average.
Reading and writing letters and playing card games or puzzles in later life may delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease by up to five years, a study by Rush University Medical Center in Chicago has found
People who spent less time on mentally demanding activities were found to have Alzheimer's at an average age of 88 - five years earlier.
Professor Robert Wilson, lead author of the study from Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago, said: 'The good news is that it's never too late to start doing the kinds of inexpensive, accessible activities we looked at in our study.
'Our findings suggest it may be beneficial to start doing these things, even in your eighties, to delay the onset of Alzheimer's dementia.'
The study, published in the journal Neurology, looked at 1,903 people aged 53 to 100.
They were asked how much time they spent reading each day, then six more questions about how active they kept their brain.
In the past year, the volunteers reported how often they had visited a library, read newspapers, magazines and books, written letters and played games or puzzles.
Popular examples included crosswords, chess and card games.
Researchers looked at these mentally challenging activities, because they are believed to
