Walking helps memory
A new United States study found that walking six to nine miles a week may preserve brain size and consequently stop memory deteriorating in later life.
The study was published online in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Dr Kirk Erickson, from the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania; said that our brains shrink in late adulthood, and this can lead to memory problems.
Researchers have promoted the theory that physical activity helps to preserve grey matter volume in late adulthood, which in turn protects memory function, but there have not been enough studies following a sizeable group of elderly people for a good number of years to back this with evidence.
Dr Erickson said he and his colleagues hope their results will now prompt some “well-designed trials of physical exercise in older adults as a promising approach for preventing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease”.
For their study, the team looked at data on 299 adults of average age 78 years who took part in the Cardiovascular Health Cognition Study, where researchers had taken measures of grey matter volume as well as physical activity and cognitive impairment.
“If regular exercise in midlife could improve brain health and improve thinking and memory in later life, it would be one more reason to make regular exercise in people of all ages a public health imperative,” Dr Erickson said.
Reverse brain ageing by teaching youngsters
Older Americans can delay or actually reverse brain ageing at a neurological level by tutoring young children in reading and maths, according to a Johns Hopkins study of the national service program Experience Corps.
The study appeared in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences.
Experience Corps, a national service program that trains volunteers to help low-income children struggling to read in urban public schools, places teams of older adults into local Baltimore City elementary schools to work 15 hours a week in grades kindergarten to grade three.
They tutor and mentor children one-on-one and in small groups to improve reading and math skills.
Michelle Carlson, an Associate Professor in the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (SPH) in Baltimore, and associate director in the Center on Aging and Health, said “We found that participating in Experience Corps resulted in improvements in cognitive functioning and this was associated with significant changes in brain activation patterns. Essentially the intervention improved brain and cognitive function in these older adults”.
The study suggests that one could reverse the decline once thought inevitable with age. The research suggests that interventions designed to promote health and function through everyday activity may improve the brain’s plasticity, or the ability to bounce back, in key regions that support executive function.
