Study: Reading Books and Playing Games May Help Prevent Dementia

Playing board games and reading books may be casual pastimes, but new research suggests that activities like these can have a real impact on a person's risk for developing dementia in old age.

The new study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, looked at more than 15,500 people ages 65 and older who were living in Hong Kong and were tracked for about five years. The men and women didn't have dementia at the start of the study, though more than 1,300 people developed it by the end.