With rising numbers of elderly and dementia in developing societies, there is a need to understand factors protective against dementia. Evidence suggests that lifetime cognitive activities including education, occupation, and complex leisure activities contribute to cognitive reserve. However, these factors are understudied in India. This paper describes the validation of the Lifetime of Experiences Questionnaire (LEQ), a comprehensive measure of complex lifetime activities, to the Indian cultural context. It also examines the relationship between lifetime experiences and cognition among 52 healthy elderly and 30 dementia patients. High inter-rater (κ=0.923, p < 0.001), test-retest (ρ: 0.905 to 0.986) reliability, and internal consistency were found for LEQ-total (0.992) and sub-scores. Literate dementia patients (25) scored significantly lower mid-life (27.5 vs. 23.3), late-life (28.5 vs. 22.5) and total LEQ (83.5 vs. 20.9) scores than literate healthy group (37). LEQ scores positively correlated with global cognition, and domains of attention and memory on the Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination, in healthy and dementia groups. Moreover, LEQ scores correlated positively with age at onset of dementia and negatively with clinical dementia rating (CDR) scores. Our study demonstrates that lifetime activities, especially mid-life experiences, play a protective role in development of late-life dementia, and need to be advocated to preserve late-life cognition.

随着发展中社会中老年人和痴呆症人数的增加，有必要了解防止痴呆症的因素。有证据表明，包括教育，职业和复杂的休闲活动在内的终生认知活动有助于认知储备。但是，这些因素在印度尚未得到充分研究。本文介绍了针对印度文化背景的“终身体验问卷”（LEQ）的验证，该问卷是对复杂的终身活动的综合衡量。它还检查了52名健康的老年人和30名痴呆患者的终生经历与认知之间的关系。高评价者（κ= 0.923，p<0.001），重测（ρ：0.905至0.986）的可靠性以及内部一致性的LEQ总分（0.992）和子得分。识字性痴呆患者（25）的中年（27.5 vs. 23.3），晚年（28.5 vs. 22.5）和LEQ总分（83.5 vs. 20.9）得分均明显低于文盲健康组（37）。在健康和痴呆症人群中，LEQ得分与总体认知，Addenbrooke认知检查的注意力和记忆范围呈正相关。此外，LEQ评分与痴呆发作时的年龄呈正相关，与临床痴呆评分（CDR）评分呈负相关。我们的研究表明，一生的活动，尤其是中年经历，在晚年痴呆的发展中起着保护作用，需要提倡维护晚年的认知。