“These results underscore the importance of style in dementia risk assessment,” wrote Daya Collier, a research fellow at the Peninsular Medical School at Monash University in Victoria, Australia.
‘Double deniers’ are at greater risk
The new study followed a group of Americans over 65 and Australians over 70 for seven years. Each year, those in the study were asked to take cognitive tests that measure overall cognitive decline, memory, processing speed, and verbal fluency.
Twice each year, subjects were asked to walk 3 meters or about 10 feet. Both results were averaged to determine the person’s usual style.
At the end of the study, the researchers found that people with a higher risk of dementia were not only “double-reduced” or very sluggish, but also showed some signs of cognitive decline, said Dr. Joe Varghese, a professor of geriatrics and neurology. At the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, Who is not involved in the study.
“Furthermore, people with double deficits are at higher risk of developing dementia than those with gait or cognitive impairment,” Varghese wrote in an editorial in JAMA magazine on Tuesday.
Despite those findings, Varghese wrote that “gait dysfunction is not considered an early clinical feature in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.”
Exercise can help
The hippocampus, which is deeply embedded in the temporal lobe of the brain, is a uniquely shaped organ responsible for learning, coordinating memories, and spatial navigation, such as the ability to remember directions, locations, and orientations.
Aerobic exercise is a type of workout that means “air” and increases heart rate and respiration, but you can not function consistently. Types of aerobic exercise include brisk walking, swimming, running, biking, dancing and kickboxing, as well as all the cardio machines like treadmill, elliptical trainer, rover or stair climber at your local gym.
