A new study has found that looking after grandchildren may help older adults protect themselves from cognitive decline.

Grandparents often help with homework, prepare meals, or take their grandchildren to the park and to school.

The new research, published by the American Psychological Association, showed that these simple activities and regular caregiving for grandchildren can contribute to better verbal fluency and episodic memory in older adults — the type of memory that helps recall personal events from the past, Euronews reports.

“What stood out most to us was that the mere fact of caring for grandchildren seems to be more important for cognitive functioning than how often grandparents provide this help or what exactly they do with their grandchildren,” said Flavia Cereses (Cerecesh) from Tilburg University in the Netherlands, the lead author of the study.

The study involved 2,887 grandparents aged over 50, with an average age of 67. All participants were cognitively healthy and living independently at the start of the research.

Participants completed questionnaires and cognitive tests three times between 2016 and 2022.

They were asked how often they looked after their grandchildren without the parents present and when they usually provided this care (during school holidays, on weekends, on weekdays, or throughout the year).

About 56 percent of participants said they helped care for their grandchildren year-round.

The researchers emphasized that it is important to consider not only frequency but also specific types of activities. Playing games and helping with homework appeared to be associated with better verbal fluency and stronger episodic memory.

Grandparents who frequently picked children up from school also showed higher verbal fluency.

Grandmothers tend to care for grandchildren more often than grandfathers, and the positive effect seems to last longer in women.

Grandmothers who looked after their grandchildren had sharper memory and better verbal skills at the beginning of the study, and these declined more slowly than in those who did not provide care.

Men who cared for their grandchildren also started the study with better scores than those who did not, but over time their skills declined at the same rate as those who were not involved in caregiving.

The researchers noted that grandmothers tend to interact differently with grandchildren: they are usually more involved in physical and emotional care, while grandfathers mainly take part in leisure activities.

The authors also stressed the need for further research to examine the influence of family context and other factors.

“Voluntary caregiving in a supportive family environment may have different consequences for grandparents than care in a more stressful setting, where they do not feel supported or view caregiving as not truly voluntary but rather as a burden,” Cereses added.