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Why Is the WHO Recommending Cognitive Training for Brain Health?
The World Health Organization suggests brain exercises as part of a broader strategy to fend off dementia
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Key takeaways
- The WHO’s 2026 dementia guidelines support doing mentally engaging activities to help protect brain health.
- Cognitive training includes targeted exercises such as puzzles, reading and activities that challenge memory, attention and processing speed.
- Experts say cognitive training is only one piece of the dementia-prevention puzzle.
Does solving crossword puzzles, Sudoku and Wordle cut your risk of dementia? Will learning a new language or playing brain games online help stave off Alzheimer’s disease?
There is no conclusive proof so far, but several studies in recent years have suggested that cognitive activities — those we can do individually, with a group or even online using brain health software — may reduce the risk of dementia, at least in the short term.
The World Health Organization (WHO) added to that growing body of evidence in mid-2026 with updated guidelines, issuing recommendations to reduce cognitive decline and protect against dementia, which more than 57 million people live with worldwide. Cognitive training was one of its recommendations.
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“We know more today than ever before about what drives dementia risk, and these guidelines translate that knowledge into action,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director-general, in a news release. “Countries now have clear, evidence-based recommendations they can put into practice immediately to protect people’s cognitive health.”
The guidelines, a follow-up to WHO’s 2019 dementia prevention report, adds new recommendations to the Lancet Commission’s landmark 2024 report that defined 14 modifiable risk factors. Managing those risks could help prevent or delay 45 percent of dementia cases, the WHO says.
The guidelines also encourage cognitive training and cognitively stimulating activities.
Cognitive training refers to targeted and repetitive exercises or tasks that stimulate specific areas of the brain — memory, attention, speed of information processing and executive function (skills we use to plan, make decisions and manage everyday tasks). Activities that fit in this category include computer or pen- and paper-based exercises as well as more-common activities like solving crosswords, assembling jigsaw puzzles and reading books.
Cognitive stimulation, according to the WHO, refers to structured programs and activities that are usually conducted in groups that build attention and problem-solving skills, like card games, and trivia and word association games to test long-term memory retrieval, especially if the activities are new and challenging. But reading and playing solo games count too.
With these guidelines, the WHO is upping its recognition of dementia as a global public health problem. And it supports cognitive training as an evidence-based way to build brain health and cognitive reserve — the brain’s ability to find and adapt neural pathways to continue functioning normally even in the face of damage, aging or injury.
Keep the mind active
“This is relevant because it includes everyday activities that individuals can easily incorporate into their daily life, such as reading, storytelling, playing games and learning new skills,” says Dr. Tarun Dua, head of the WHO’s neurological, sensory and oral conditions unit. “For AARP readers, the key message is that maintaining an active and engaged mind through cognitively stimulating activities may support brain health.”
But the operative word here is “may.”
“My feeling about cognitive training is it is helpful, but … also limited,” says Dr. Hussein Yassine, director of the Center for Personalized Brain Health at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. It is just one of a constellation of ways to rewire the brain to reduce dementia risk.
Interest in cognitive training to improve brain health started about 30 years ago, when researchers started looking at lifestyle factors that may contribute to dementia or reduce risk. Since then, studies have yielded varying results.
For example, the POINTER study (U.S. Study to Protect Brain Health Through Lifestyle Intervention to Reduce Risk,) a two-year clinical trial conducted by the Alzheimer’s Association, released results in JAMA in 2025 showing that a constellation of lifestyle behaviors — including regular physical activity, good diet and social connections — could dramatically improve cognitive function in adults ages 60 to 79 who were at risk for dementia.
In the study, participants engaged in computer-based brain training three times a week for 30 minutes in addition to regular intellectually challenging and social activities. The goal: to challenge the brain and push participants slightly outside their comfort zones to increase cognitive reserve and promote neuroplasticity, which is the brain’s ability to change and adapt.
In early 2026, a 20-year follow-up to the ACTIVE (Advanced Cognitive Training for Independent and Vital Elderly) trial was released. ACTIVE is the largest randomized controlled study in the U.S. to evaluate the long-term effects of cognitive training on mental sharpness and daily functioning. The results showed that older adults who completed 14 to 22 hours of a specific type of brain training, available through a company called Posit Science,, plus “booster” training (about six hours one year later and six hours three years later), had a 25 percent lower risk of being diagnosed with dementia 20 years later compared with those who didn’t receive the training.
“That’s a really big deal,” says Marilyn Albert, director of the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and corresponding author for the 20-year ACTIVE follow-up. “It tells us we’re on the right path to beginning to understand how cognitive training might reduce risk of dementia.”
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The ACTIVE speed training targeted something called speed of processing, or how quickly your brain takes in information and reacts. Participants saw images on a screen and had to make quick decisions while also noticing objects in their peripheral vision. The exercises became more challenging as users improved.
According to Albert, effective activities that may reduce cognitive decline are those that are challenging and interesting and keep your brain active.
“My guess is that when you’re doing this speed of processing training, you’re changing brain networks. The booster sessions reinforced the benefits gained from speed processing training,” she adds.
Interest in brain health in recent years has paved the way for several software games. These cognitive training programs — BrainHQ (by Posit Science), Lumosity, Cognifit, for example — use regular mental exercises and computer games to help keep or improve brain skills like memory, attention and processing speed, adapting tasks to match a user’s personal skill level.
The jury is still out on whether these training programs work and how well. But researchers agree that taking on new challenges and introducing new information seem to excite the brain networks and, they believe, reduce the risk of dementia. You can do this any number of ways, like taking Italian lessons or a class at your local community center or buying an especially challenging jigsaw puzzle to do at your kitchen table.
The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.
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