Listening to music or playing an instrument is linked to lower dementia risk. Digest
Cognitive decline and dementia are major challenges in aging societies, and with no treatment that can cure these conditions, prevention plays a central role in public health. In a large Australian cohort study, researchers asked whether older people's patterns of listening to music or playing a musical instrument predicted later cognitive performance.
The study followed 10,893 cognitively healthy adults (who were at least 70 years old) for about nine years. About three years into the study, they completed a one-time questionnaire that asked how often they listened to radio or music and how often they played a musical instrument, including singing. Each activity was later grouped into frequency levels, and the researchers also created a combined measure that reflected how often participants engaged in both behaviors. These exposure groups were then used to examine later risk of dementia, cognitive impairment without dementia (CIND), and long-term changes in cognitive performance.
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The study identified several links between music engagement and later cognitive measures:
- Older adults who reported listening to music on most days had a 39% lower risk of dementia and a 17% lower risk of CIND than those who listened rarely or never. They also showed slower decline in overall cognition and memory, but the study did not find similar differences for word-finding or speed-related tasks.
- Participants who often or most days played a musical instrument had about 35 percent lower dementia risk than those who rarely or never played, although instrument playing alone was not clearly associated with CIND or with changes in cognitive test performance.
- People who frequently listened to music and played an instrument had a 33 percent lower dementia risk and a 22 percent lower risk of CIND than those who rarely or never did either activity.
These findings fit with the idea that mentally and emotionally stimulating activities can support a more flexible and efficient brain. Music activates several interconnected systems in the brain, among them attention, memory, movement, auditory processing, and emotion, and repeated activation over many years may strengthen the brain's capacity to compensate when certain pathways become less reliable. This capacity, often described as cognitive reserve, helps people maintain everyday thinking skills even when there is some underlying deterioration.
Although the study cannot prove that music itself prevents dementia, the work highlights music engagement as a low-cost, widely accessible candidate for dementia risk reduction strategies in older adults. Future intervention trials and longer observational studies will be needed to test whether altering music habits can change cognitive trajectories. My Cognitive Enhancement Blueprint offers a variety of other lifestyle interventions and protocols that have strong potential to improve cognitive performance and slow brain aging.