Helping to care for grandchildren may serve as a buffer against cognitive decline in older adults, according to recent research. “Many grandparents provide regular care for their grandchildren – care that supports families and society more broadly,” said lead researcher Flavia Chereches, MS, of Tilburg University in the Netherlands. “An open question, however, is whether caregiving for grandchildren may also benefit grandparents themselves."

To study this, Chereches and her colleagues examined data from 2,887 grandparents (all older than age 50, with a mean age of 67) who took part in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Participants answered survey questions and completed cognitive tests three times between 2016 and 2022.

The survey asked whether participants had provided care for a grandchild at any point in the past year. It also asked  how frequently they provided care and what kinds of care they provided – including watching grandchildren overnight, caring for ill grandchildren, playing or engaging in leisure activities, helping with homework, driving grandchildren to school and activities, and preparing meals.

Overall, the researchers found that grandparents who provided childcare scored higher on tests of both memory and verbal fluency compared with those who didn’t, even after adjusting for age, health, and other factors. This held true regardless of the frequency and type of care the grandparents provided. In addition, grandmothers who provided care saw less decline on cognitive tests over the course of the study compared with those who didn’t.

“What stood out most to us was that being a caregiving grandparent seemed to matter more for cognitive functioning than how often grandparents provided care or what exactly they did with their grandchildren,” said Chereches. “More research is needed to replicate these findings, yet, if there are benefits associated with caregiving for grandparents, they might not depend on how often care is provided, or on the specific activities done with grandchildren, but rather on the broader experience of being involved with caregiving.”

Further work should also be done to explore the effects of family context and other variables, Chereches said. “Providing care voluntarily, within a supportive family environment, may have different effects for grandparents than caregiving in a more stressful environment where they feel unsupported or feel that the caregiving is not voluntary or a burden.”

To download the full study, published in Psychology and Aging, click here