Shakespeare and Wordsworth boost the brain, new research reveals

I wonder if reading old English would do the same. So I bet your doctor should be prescribing Shakespeare reading for you after your stroke, and I bet reading it aloud would be even better.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9797617/Shakespeare-and-Wordsworth-boost-the-brain-new-research-reveals.html

Scientists, psychologists and English academics at Liverpool University have found that reading the works of the Bard and other classical writers has a beneficial effect on the mind, catches the reader’s attention and triggers moments of self-reflection.

Using scanners, they monitored the brain activity of volunteers as they read works by William Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, T.S Eliot and others.

They then “translated” the texts into more “straightforward”, modern language and again monitored the readers’ brains as they read the words.

Scans showed that the more “challenging” prose and poetry set off far more electrical activity in the brain than the more pedestrian versions.

More at the link
Beowolf old English from the link above.

Sample text in Old English (Prologue from Beowulf)