The WHO's brain-health list reads like a croquet morning

The World Health Organization published a new list of what protects an ageing brain.

- Physical activity. - Social contact. - Something to think about.

That is a fair description of a croquet club on a Saturday morning.

Up to 45% of dementia risk comes from factors that can be changed.

Deaths from dementia in Australia have risen 39% in the past decade, and dementia is now Australia's leading cause of death, having overtaken heart disease.

Croquet helps with protecting a healthy brain in two main ways.

A long clubroom table after play, members talking together over a cup of tea. (A club morning doesn't end when the game does.)

The first is social engagement. Loneliness is on the risk list alongside smoking and high blood pressure.

The second is what counts as keeping the mind active. The old advice pointed at structured brain training on a computer. The new update adds cognitive stimulation, which is a good deal broader.

Professor Kaarin Anstey of the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute, who sat on the WHO's guideline development group, listed it as reading books, participating in games, undertaking a course, learning a new language, playing an instrument.

The World Health Organisation guidelines back multi-domain interventions, meaning programmes that go after three or more risk factors at once.

Creating a programme that does four things at once, and that people keep attending for years, is a difficult and expensive problem for public health.

The science is largely settled that people need more mental stimulation through conversation and games. Getting the increasingly ageing population to participate is proving harder for government.

Now look at a club morning at croquet. One player on Croquet Queensland's ClubHub forum counts 1000 to 2000 steps in an hour's game. It is played with other people, and they talk. It is tactical, so you think several turns ahead. It happens outdoors.

Four players mid-game on the lawn, one lining up a shot while the others watch. (A kilometre or two of walking, most mornings.)

Three things on the list, in one morning, happy game, happy brain.

The best thing about croquet is people keep coming back. Health programmes run for eight weeks, or twelve, and then the funding ends.

Our club members stay years. They stay for the company and the game, it being good for them is a bonus. That is why croquet works as a public health asset.

The WHO is direct about where responsibility sits. Individual effort will not shift how common dementia is. The World Health Organisation asks governments to build risk reduction into primary health care and into community health programmes. Queensland Croquet Clubs already run these programs.

The Queensland Government does not have to invent new methods of mental stimulation. Queensland Croquet Clubs are already there, in our suburbs. They are providing community health infrastructure.

Cake as a healthfood.

Cake and afternoon tea laid out by Bribie Island Croquet Club members for a Big Morning Tea fundraiser. (Bribie Island Croquet Club's Big Morning Tea, raising funds for the Cancer Council.)