From Reuters Health Information

Exercise Did Not Improve Cognition in Elderly Dementia Patients: Study

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Jul 07 - A short-term walking program did not improve cognition in older nursing home patients with moderate dementia, reports an article in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry for July.

"Physical activity can increase brain volume and benefit cognition in healthy sedentary older people," the authors note. Furthermore, they say, treadmill running led to reduced beta-amyloid accumulation in a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease.

In their randomized trial of a walking intervention in 97 elderly men and women (mean age, 85.4 years) with a mean Mini-Mental State Examination score of 17.7, however, Dr. L. H. P. Eggermont of VU University in Amsterdam and colleagues did not observe any benefit on cognition.

Patients assigned to the experimental group walked for 30 minutes, 5 days a week, for 6 weeks. The control group received one-on-one social visits on the same schedule.

The researchers used a linear mixed model to calculate differences "in a broad range of cognitive functions" between the groups at baseline, after the six-week program, and again six weeks later. "No positive effects on cognition were found, and treatment outcome was not influenced by apolipoprotein E genotype," the investigators said.

"Possible explanations for the lack of a beneficial effect...could be the level of physical activation of the intervention or the high frequency of comorbid cardiovascular disease in the present population of older people with dementia," the authors conclude.

J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry 2009;80:802-804