The brain is elastic, not fixed and rigid, and it can produce new nerve connections at any age as long as it is being kept active. There is not a lot of point concentrating just on the games and puzzles that we are naturally good at. We need to do novel tasks to develop our neural networks.
For example, I am quite good at Sudoku. I have done many of these puzzles and probably won't get any better from now on. However, I have had some difficulty remembering words that I once knew quite well. I've never bothered with crosswords until recently but have been making an effort whenever I find one in a magazine or newspaper. I don't worry about getting every clue right. The aim of the exercise is to exercise that part of my brain that deals with language. I now find that I am getting much better at the puzzles over time and am having less problems with remembering words.
The brain is involved in everything we do. Manual skills, dancing, throwing and catching, singing or playing an instrument are all controlled by the brain. All of these activities help keep the neurons firing. All are helpful to brain health.
However, dementia is the result of brain damage that can occur in various ways. One way is repeated brain bleeds. This tends to happen in my family. The best way to head this off as long as possible it to have the blood pressure under control but doing puzzles will not do a thing for this cause. Regular exercise would be much more helpful. Alzheimer's is another cause of senile dementia and for that you need a proper diagnosis and appropriate medical care. As far as I know none of the above activities will do anything to prevent Alzheimer's.
