Picture taken from http://guardianlv.com/
Alzheimer’s disease(AD) is a neurodegenerative disease responsible for most cases of dementia in elderly population. A lot of trials with drugs are ongoing in order to find the prevention and cure of AD. But recent research have shown life style modification and behavioral changes to be as effective as drugs in the prevention of AD.
A study published in the journal of gerontology has shown 6 months of aerobic exercise effective in reducing the symptoms of AD in the elderly population.
This study used 6-month cycling intervention to older adults of a selected community with mild-to-moderate AD. The exercise was a standardized, supervised, and individualized, moderate intensity cycling for 15 to 45 min a session (excluding 10-min warm-up and 10-min cool-down activities), 3 times a week for 6 months.
The outcomes of this training regimen were evaluated by measuring the cognition, ADL(Activities of daily living), BPSD(Behavioral and psychological symptoms of dementia) and caregiver distress at the end of the experiment.
The data was collected from older adults with mild to moderate AD and they were followed up for 6 months. The results showed neither significant cognitive decline nor deterioration of the neuropsychiatric symptoms during the 6 month period. Also, aerobic exercise significantly reduced the stress in the caregivers.
There are other papers which have shown the benefit of exercise in neuropsychiatric as well as neurological disorders. Nevertheless, every research paper has its own limitations. But this finding that showed the effectiveness of exercise in preventing the progression of AD is very encouraging. Although, more detailed and precise research need to be done, opening of sports center for the elderly people to engage them in mild-moderate intensity aerobic exercise might be a good idea. Like they say prevention is better than cure, these type of sports center for elderly people might help in preventing AD, thus preventing the social as well and economic burden in the future.
For more details, see the reference article below:
Impact of 6-Month Aerobic Exercise on Alzheimer’s Symptoms Fang Yu, William Thomas, Nathaniel W. Nelson, Ulf G. Bronas, Maurice Dysken,and Jean F. Wyman, Journal of Applied Gerontology published online 11 December 2013,DOI: 10.1177/0733464813512895
healthierbrain 
I agree and value the benefits of aerobic exercise for many neurological diseases and general health for all ages. You are so right about study limitations and ability to quantify findings. Sports Centers for optimal health is awesome! I appreciate your educational post!
LikeLike
Thank you Catherine for your appreciation. Aerobic exercise has been found to be effective for brain health, irrespective of age. Its a good idea to promote aerobic exercise because unlike anaerobic exercise, its not strenuous and difficult to perform aerobic exercise.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on One Regular Guy Writing about Food, Exercise and Living Longer and commented:
This study used 6-month cycling intervention to older adults of a selected community with mild-to-moderate AD. The exercise was a standardized, supervised, and individualized, moderate intensity cycling for 15 to 45 min a session (excluding 10-min warm-up and 10-min cool-down activities), 3 times a week for 6 months.
LikeLike
Reblogged this on Bite into Nutrition and commented:
Hopefully, this inspires those in this life stage (baby boomers and beyond) to do aerobic and strength training. Regular exercise (150 minutes/week) also helps offset the lean muscle mass that we naturally lose each year with age.
LikeLike