Volunteering in older adulthood is associated with activity engagement and cognitive functioning

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Given evidence that activity engagement in older adulthood can have protective effects on the aging brain, we investigated the idea that volunteering in the community, which often encompasses social, cognitive, and physical activity, might benefit cognition.

Method: Ninety-one retired 65- to 75-year-olds reported their sociodemographic characteristics, wellbeing, volunteering, and activity engagement. They also completed computerized cognitive tests that tapped specific functions known to decline disproportionately with age.

Results: Volunteering at least monthly was associated with better working memory and more social and cognitive activity. Mediation analyses indicated that volunteering was indirectly related to switching performance via cognitive activity. However, the volunteering-working memory association did not depend on activity engagement, leaving the underpinning mechanisms unclear.

Conclusions: These findings provide new insight into positive associations between older people’s volunteering, activity engagement, and cognitive functioning. However, further work is needed to understand the mechanisms that drive volunteering-cognition links, and to establish causality.

KEYWORDS:

• Cognition
• working memory
• successful aging
• volunteerism
• productive activities

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Brain Research New Zealand. The authors wish to thank Chris Gorman for preparing the software used for the cognitive testing in this study.

Disclosure Statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare, and affirm that no financial interest or benefit has arisen from the direct applications of our research.

Supplementary material

Supplementary data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Brain Research New Zealand.