Improve Your Memory, Exercise!

The target of Alzheimer's Disease are usually the elderly people. And because of this, we sometimes ask: does it follow that when you reach the age of said 50 or higher, you will have that illness? Or are there any other factors that contribute to it? As we get older we think that doing physical exercise can strain our bodies and cause negative effects. But a recent study in Australia may prove this wrong.

This disease is caused by a build-up of proteins in the brain. The build-up manifest in two ways first is the plaques which are the deposits of the protein beta-amyloid that accumulate in the spaces between nerve cells and the other is the tangles which is the deposits of the protein tau that accumulate inside of nerve cells. But there are also some factors that contribute to this disease like the age, family history and the lifestyle factors.

A recent study conducted by Nicola T. Lautenschlager, M.D., of the University of Melbourne, and colleagues, to test whether a physical-activity intervention might delay progression of prodromal symptoms to full-blown dementia, the researchers conducted a randomized controlled trial of 138 patients who did not meet criteria for dementia but who reported memory problems and had lower scores on the cognitive section of an Alzheimer's disease scale.

Patients (about 40% women, mean age about 68) were randomly assigned to a 24-week, home-based exercise program or to an education and usual-care group. Results show that patients from the home-based exercise program has shown improvement in terms of delayed word recall and Clinical Dementia Rating. However, total immediate word recall, digit symbol coding, verbal fluency, Beck depression score, and the Medical Outcomes summary did not change significantly.

Investigators said that "physical activity has health benefits that are not confined to cognitive function alone as suggested by other findings for depression, quality of life, falls, cardiovascular function, and disability."

Click here to read the article