Participating in Caregiving Activities Tied to Cognitive Benefits for Grandparents

THURSDAY, Jan. 29, 2026 (HealthDay News) — Grandparents who provide care for their grandchildren tend to show better cognitive functioning than those who do not, according to a study published online Jan. 26 in Psychology and Aging.

Flavia S. Chereches, from Tilburg University in the Netherlands, and colleagues evaluated whether specific caregiving activities (e.g., engaging in leisure activities with grandchildren, cooking for them) or the variety of activities affects grandparents” cognition. The analysis included grandparents (aged 50 years and older) in three waves of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (1,700 participants).

The researchers found that both caregiving grandmothers and grandfathers had higher levels of verbal fluency and episodic memory versus matched controls. However, only caregiving grandmothers showed less cognitive decline over time. The frequency of caregiving did not predict cognitive functioning among grandparents. Grandparents with initially higher cognitive levels were more engaged in specific activities (e.g., spending leisure time with grandchildren, assisting with homework) and participated in a wider variety of caregiving activities.

“Further research is needed to replicate these effects and explore whether … caregiving does not benefit grandfathers because it may be too demanding for them, or because their caregiving role is more peripheral than that of grandmothers,” the authors write. “This is particularly important in light of our results in the sensitivity analysis, showing that caregiving grandfathers under the age of 75 experienced a greater decline in verbal fluency compared with matched controls.”

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