Exercise may be as good as drugs in helping elderly think more clearly

Exercise is as effective as medication for improving the cognitive skills of the elderly who have memory and thinking problems, according to a new study published online in Neurology, a journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Participants in the study who took part in thrice weekly hour-long exercise classes for six months showed a small improvement of 1.7 points on a test of overall thinking skills compared to those who did not exercise.

“This result, while modest, was similar to that seen in previous studies testing the use of drugs for people with vascular cognitive impairment,” says study author Teresa Liu-Ambrose of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. “However, the difference was less than what is considered to be the minimal clinically important difference of three points.”

The study involved 70 people with an average age of 74 years who had mild vascular cognitive impairment, the second most common cause of dementia after Alzheimer’s disease. With the condition, problems with memory and thinking skills result from damage to large and small blood vessels in the brain.

Half the participants formed the exercise group and the other half a control group who received information each month about vascular cognitive impairment and a healthy diet, but no information on physical activity. All were tested before the study started, at the end of the study and again six months later on their overall thinking skills, executive function skills such as planning and organising and how well they could complete their daily activities.

There was no difference between the two groups at any point on the tests of executive function skills or daily activities. Six months after the participants stopped the exercise programme, their scores were no different than the controls.