Can a Walk a Day Keep Alzheimer's Away?
Alzheimers is a horrible disease that many people are at risk of. five million people have Alzeimers disease and ten million boomers are at risk for memory problems. Although medicine seems to always be the answer, scientists have found a non-medical way that could reduce risk factors for dementia, which is a form of Alzheimers. That non-medical way is to exercise. Studies show that adults who are more active in their lifestyles have a lower risk of dementia. Some of the activities that were tested were; swimming, walking, and ballroom dancing. Nicola Lautenschlager at the University of Western Australia studied 170 older people. Sixty percent of the people had a condition that seemed to be the beforehand of Alzheimers. The study went on for six months.
The study consisted of three fifty minutes of some sort of exercise each week. The study divided people into two groups. One group consisted of people who were already doing fifty minutes of exercise per week. The other group had people who were informed about health education. The group who had the people who were already exercising were asked to exercise for an additional fifty minutes per week for this study. By the end of the six months, the exercisers improved on an a long-term measure of cognitive abilities. The group of people who had a little bit of cognitive also improved. Aerobic exercise seemed to improve establishable cognitive abilities. The exercisers maintained a ten percent vantage on the cognitive scores and had less of a decline in memory measure a year after the study was over.This study is very important because it shows how exercise can benefit cognition in older adults with memory problems within an 18 month range. Although this test may seem to show that exercise can help reduce dementia, the effect size shown was too small for a persom to notice a change.
I thought this article was very imspiring. Scientists trying to find a way to postpone Alzheimers without using medicine shows that people don't always have to realize on medicine. I think that trying something other then the same thing (medicine) would get more people to really start thinking about their health and what can happen. I feel like this article is a good way to make people realize they should start exercising. Not only is it healthy for them, it could also save their memory. I am interested to see if they can actually get a better result if they double or triple the size of the groups.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=fitness-and-the-brain
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=fitness-and-the-brain
posted by Stephanie R @ 5:11 PM
3 Comments:
I think this study is interesting because I never knew that there was a link between how physically healthy a person is and how mentally healthy they are. I suppose that this will encourage more people who are at risk for Alzheimer's to start getting physically healthy if they are not already. Because my grandfather was an avid smoker and drinker before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, it is interesting to think that he may have been able to prevent it by being a little healthier. It would have been great for researcher's to test this theory on a larger number of people.
I think this is a very interesting article. I knew that there were medications that helped with Alzheimer's, but i never knew that something so simple as walking could help with it too. Many people nowadays are really lazy and want to sit on the couch and watch tv or play video games. If they knew they had some sort of risk for Alzheimer's and knew that exercising could help prevent it, I think many more people would be doing more physical activity and not as much time watching t.v. and playing games.
I thought this was interesting, because I never made the connection between physical health and cognitive diseases. But when I think about it, I guess it makes sense. When kids in high school participate in physical activites, their grades tend to improve. Another way to prevent Alzheimer's is to learn something new, or to think something through. This will stimulate brain activity and maintain previous knowledge. It would be interesting to see the research of mental and physical factors working together to prevent Alzhiemer's.
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