Cognitive and physical activities are associated with cognitive resilience in a memory clinic cohort.

Lifestyle factors such as participation in cognitively stimulating activities and physical activity are hypothesized to foster neural connections and enhance resilience, thereby attenuating cognitive loss in the context of Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other neurodegenerative diseases. Nonetheless, the relationship between these factors and important clinical outcomes of cognition and brain atrophy is not well understood. We assessed cognitive and physical activity levels in a large, tertiary memory clinic cohort with various clinical and aetiological diagnoses. Furthermore, we investigated whether cognitive and physical activities relate to resilience against brain atrophy across the AD continuum. In the memory clinic-based Amsterdam Dementia Cohort (ADC), 4033 individuals completed the self-reported questionnaires to quantify their engagement in cognitive (lifetime, past and current) and physical (current) activities. Firstly, we examined differences in activity scores across diagnostic groups [i.e. Alzheimer's and non-Alzheimer's types of dementia, mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and subjective cognitive decline (SCD)] using linear models adjusted for age and sex. Secondly, in a subset on the AD continuum (i.e. amyloid-β-positive with SCD, MCI or Alzheimer's dementia;