The article, which is now in the part of The Lowell Sun history, located behind a User ID and Password, says that:
Experts from King's College London analyzed data from more than 1,300 people with dementia. They considered factors including education, employment and retirement.OK, six weeks doesn't seem that long, but still, it points to the fact that being active, using your brain and interacting with other people, is important to keeping your faculties.
Researchers found that people who retired later were able to avoid the mind-robbing Alzheimer's disease longer than people who retired earlier.
Each extra year of work was associated with approximately a six-week delay in the onset of dementia.
Regards — Cliff
Cliff,
ReplyDeleteThis seems intuitive anyway, but I'm glad to see it spelled out.
Especially for people who don't earn their living doing manual labor, I've never understood the idea that people should stop working when they reach [insert age here.]
I'll admit to using this an excuse not to be frugal, but of all the possible jobs, outcomes, etc. I could expect in my life, the LAST thing I ever fantasize about, or even envision, is just dropping everything at age 55 and sipping drinks on a beach all day...or playing bingo, or watching The Price is Right, or whatever.
And on top of the personal fulfillment thing, and the mental health reasons you just cited, I'd also add the chance that if we could change the way we look at retirement as something owed to us at a certain point in life, we might be able to help the solvency of some of our entitlement systems..
best,
gp