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Learning an instrument in later life may help prevent age-related memory decline.

Older adults who kept practicing showed better working memory and brain health after four years.

Music training in later life offers cognitive, emotional, and even physical health benefits.

It has long been understood that musical training brings many positive effects, cognitively and emotionally. Much of the previous research, however, has focused on children. And in fact, when we tend to think of someone beginning to learn a musical instrument, we often think of kids: a 5-year-old tentatively figuring out a scale on a piano or an 8-year-old squeaking along on a violin as their parents order them to keep practicing. A recent study, however, suggests that the benefits of learning a new instrument may be particularly strong for older adults as well, and may even help ward off memory deterioration.

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