Pets can stave off dementia for people over 50 living alone: Study

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Getting a pet can help slow the progress of dementia for those who are 50 and over and live on their own, according to a new study.

Researchers out of the Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, looked at whether pet ownership was associated with cognitive decline in older adults living alone.

The study, “Pet Ownership, Living Alone, and Cognitive Decline Among Adults 50 Years and Older” and published in JAMA Network Open, found that having a pet made a difference in verbal memory and fluency among those who are older and on their own — but not in those who lived with others.

“Pet ownership offset the associations between living alone and declining rates [of] verbal memory and verbal fluency,” said professor Ciyong Lu, the study’s author.

There were 7,945 participants over the age of 50 and an average age of 66 — about 35% of them owned pets and 27% lived alone.

Those living alone with a pet showed slower rates of developing signs of dementia, according to Lu.

“These findings suggest that pet ownership may be associated with slower cognitive decline among older adults living alone,” he said.

“Contrary to living alone, pet ownership (for example, raising dogs and cats) is related to reduced loneliness, an important risk factor for dementia and cognitive decline,” according to the study.

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Lu said that clinical trials will be necessary to confirm the study’s findings.

Currently, more than 55 million people worldwide have dementia — with nearly 10 million new cases each year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Nearly 452,000 people over 65 in Canada were living with diagnosed dementia while nearly 85,000 older than 65 were newly diagnosed between April 2017 and March 2018, according to Health Canada stats.

While the agency stated the number of people living with dementia to continue to increase as Canada’s population ages, it pointed out that data shows that the rate of newly diagnosed cases in people aged 65 and over has been decreasing over the past 10 years.

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