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Jakarta – Owning a cat or a dog is a impressive and joy experience. They can bring warmth to a home with their playful antics and soothing purrs.
But it turns out that in addiction to provide happiness, owning a cat or a dog can slow the rate of cognitive decline or thinking power.
Especially, if we often take pet dogs and cats for walks, a study revealed.
Everyone experiences declines in mental abilities such as learning, thinking, problem solving, memory and reasoning as they age, even if they don't have dementia.
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But some are able to maintain good cognitive abilities well into older age – and researchers set out to discover whether owning pets may have a benefit.
The team, from the University of Maryland in the US, examined data on 637 participants aged between 51 and 101.
In total, nearly a third owned pets with 11 per cent owning cats and 13 per cent owning dogs.
Analysis revealed that, over a decade, cognitive function declined for all participants as they aged.
However, this decline was slower for those who owned cats or dogs compared to non-pet owners.
Two-thirds of dog owners reported walking their dogs – and this group experienced even slower cognitive decline than dog owners who did not walk their pet.
"The current study provides important longitudinal evidence for the contribution of pet ownership to the maintenance of cognitive functionin generally healthy community-residing older adults as they age," wrote the authors of Journal Scientific Reports.
"Older adult pet owners experienced less decline in cognitive function as they aged, after considering both their pre-existing health and age,"
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The authors continued: "Memory, executive function, language function, psychomotor speed, and processing speed deteriorated less over 10 years among pet owners than among non-owners and among dog owners than non-owners,"
Then, "Cat owners experienced less deterioration in memory and language function. Dog walking also was associated with slower deterioration in cognitive function,"
Previous studies have shown that pets can provide social support, and that interacting with them can lower blood pressure and heart rate.
The researchers said other explanations could be that pet owners are less stressed, are more relaxed and have an external focus for attention.
Owning dogs can also lead to an increase in physical activity through their need to be taken out for daily exercise, which is known to be beneficial for health, they added.
"Policy makers can use these findings to support inclusion of pets in care plans, designing housing and neighbourhoods for seniors that are friendly for dog walking, and developing programs to support pet ownership," they concluded.
