But not all signs of cognitive decline predict later dementia – only 10% to 20% of people age 65 or older with mild cognitive impairment or MCI develop dementia the following year, according to the National Institute on Aging. “In many cases, the symptoms of MCI may remain the same or even improve,” the institute said. A large, new study of nearly 17,000 adults over the age of 65 now finds people who walk about 5% slower or more each year, while showing signs of slower mental processing, are more likely to develop dementia. The study was published Tuesday in the journal JAMA Network Open.
“These results underscore the importance of gait in assessing the risk of dementia,” said Taya Collier, a research fellow at Peninsula Clinical School at Monash University in Victoria, Australia.
“Double deviations” with the highest risk
The new study followed a group of Americans over 65 and Australians over 70 for seven years. Every two years, people in the study were asked to take cognitive tests that measured overall cognitive decline, memory, processing speed and verbal fluency.
Twice each year, subjects were also asked to walk 3 meters or about 10 feet. The two results were then averaged to determine the typical human gait.
At the end of the study, researchers found that the highest risk of dementia is for “double losers” or people who not only walk slower but also show some signs of cognitive decline, said Dr. Joe Vergese, a professor of geriatrics. and neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, who was not involved in the study.
“In addition, patients with a double decline had a higher risk of dementia than those with gait or cognitive decline alone,” Vergese wrote in an accompanying editorial published in JAMA magazine on Tuesday.
The double link between walking speed and memory impairment is a prediction of later dementia, according to a 2020 meta-analysis of nearly 9,000 adult Americans.
However, despite these findings, “gait dysfunction is not considered an early clinical feature in patients with Alzheimer’s disease,” Vergese wrote.
Exercise can help
There are things we can do with age to reverse the contraction of the brain that comes with typical aging. Studies have found that aerobic exercise increases the size of the hippocampus, increasing some aspects of memory.
Buried deep in the temporal lobe of the brain, the hippocampus is a strangely shaped organ that is responsible for learning, consolidating memories, and spatial navigation, such as the ability to remember directions, locations, and orientations.
Aerobic exercise increased the volume of the right anterior hippocampus by 2%, thus reversing age-related organ loss by one to two years in a randomized clinical trial from 2011. By comparison, people who did only stretching exercises were had an approximate decline of about 1.43% over the same period.
Aerobic exercise means “air” and is a type of exercise in which the heart rate and respiration increase, but not so much that you can not continue to function. Types of aerobic exercise can include brisk walking, swimming, running, cycling, dancing and kickboxing, as well as all cardio equipment at your local gym, such as a treadmill, elliptical trainer, rower or stair climber.
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