Babs Zielazinski is a dynamic octogenarian who's taken to the keyboard in the last few months.

"I can do the fingering with the right hand and I can fiddle a little bit with the chords, and it sounds pretty good to me," said Zielazinski.

Her enthusiasm is part of a plan to keep her mind active for the long term.

"Maybe if I get to the age of 100, I'll still know what I'm doing," she said.

She's also joined a Rush University Medical Center study to see if an antioxidant supplement can prevent Alzheimer's disease.

"What we're trying to do is to test to see if the cerefolin NAC, which is a combination of high dose B vitamins and an antioxidant, will help to replace some of the antioxidant capabilities that the body is losing," said Dr. Raj Shah, a geriatrics specialist.

As we age, antioxidant production drops and may allow damaging proteins to build up in the brain.

"The oxidative stress causes problems with causing the nerve cells not to function as well, and to die sooner, and that brings out the symptoms, " said Shah.

Participants in the study take a multivitamin supplement plus another pill, which may be the antioxidant booster cerefolin NAC.

"It'll be interesting to see if the combination of those two agents together seem to bring a little bit more benefit than just the B vitamins by themselves," said Shah.

Whether the supplement actually helps is still up in the air.

"We just have to understand what these nutraceuticals are doing and whether they're helpful or not," said Shah.

The results could help Zielazinski decide whether her memories can be preserved by a pill.

The study is currently limited to people in the Chicago area. However Shah says, if the results are promising, they will pursue a larger study.