Can your job affect your dementia risk?

For decades, research has shown that education can have a protective effect against dementia. In one study, each additional year of education was shown to lower the risk of Alzheimer's disease or other types of dementia by 7%.

There is also growing research that suggests the jobs people have can also impact their risk of dementia, with more complex jobs or those that require high levels of decision-making or creativity being more protective.

For example, a 2024 study of over 7,000 people in Norway found that those who had the least mentally demanding jobs had 66% greater risk of mild cognitive impairment and a 31% greater risk of dementia after age 70 compared to those in more mentally demanding roles. Overall, 42% of people who worked in the least cognitively challenging jobs were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment compared to 27% in the most cognitively stimulating roles.

Some of the jobs that were ranked as most cognitively stimulating were teachers and university lecturers. In comparison, the least cognitively demanding jobs were those that involved repetitive manual tasks, such as cleaning, road work, or mail delivery.

"It really shows how important work is," said Trine Edwin, a geriatrician and postdoctoral fellow at Oslo University Hospital and one of the study's authors. "It's important to go to work and use your brain, and to use your brain to learn new things."

"We spend most of our day in work, at least eight hours a day. So that's like, a third of our time engaged in work, sometimes more," said Naaheed Mukadam, professor of psychiatry at University College London who was not involved in the study. "That's a large part of what our brain is engaged in and therefore will have a large contributory effect on cognitive reserve development."

Although it's not clear why people in these specific jobs had lower Alzheimer-related death rates, one potential explanation is that they require frequent real-time spatial and navigational skills. The use of these skills can change the structure and function of the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory and navigation that is often affected by Alzheimer's.

Notably, other jobs involving transportation, such as bus drivers, pilots, and ship captains, were not associated with lower rates of Alzheimer's-related deaths. According to Anupam Jena, a professor of healthcare policy at Harvard Medical School, these jobs had "fewer navigational demands" compared to taxi and ambulance drivers.

"[B]us drivers are driving predetermined routes," Jena said. "It's not this on-the-fly navigational memory that taxi drivers are required to possess."

How to boost your cognitive abilities outside of work

Although studies suggest that more mentally stimulating occupations can help protect against dementia, work isn't the only area where people can build their cognitive abilities

 "It's not that you are doomed or you are not – we can empower people for their later cognitive health with education and tasks that are cognitively stimulating," Trine said.

Some ways that people can strengthen their cognitive reserves outside of work include:

1. Embrace lifelong learning. Reading regularly and taking classes offered by local parks and recreation departments or community colleges can help with routine learning. "Education increases cognitive reserve, like building a muscle," Mukadam said.
2. Find enriching hobbies. Some hobbies, like playing board games, knitting, and quilting, can benefit the brain.
3. Volunteer for different causes. According to a recent study, having a sense of purpose could help preserve cognitive function as people age. Volunteering for a worthy cause can help solidify your sense of purpose while helping you acquire new skills and expand your social network.
4. Stay social. Strong social connections have been linked to greater cognitive reserve.
5. Keep your brain engaged after retirement. Although there is some belief that retirement could accelerate cognitive decline, studies on the hypothesis have so far returned mixed results. If your job is a source of enjoyment rather than stress, Hyun said that "[r]etiring later may protect your cognitive health longer."

"Cardiovascular health has been a concern for many, many decades, so it's great that people are now interested in what they can do for brain health," Mukadam said. "As we're living longer, it's important to preserve that brain function so we can continue to use our brains as long as possible."