Abstract
Objective
To systematically examine the amount and type of physical exercise that might reduce
the future risk of dementia in community-living older people.
Design
Six-year observational study.
Setting
All the Elderly Health Centers (EHCs) of the Department of Health in Hong Kong.
Participants
A total of 15,589 community-living Chinese aged 65 years and older with no history
of stroke, clinical dementia, or Parkinson disease when they completed health assessment
at the EHCs in the first 6 months of 2005.
Measurements
Self-reported habitual physical exercise patterns, including the frequency, duration,
and type of exercise, at baseline and Year 3 were analyzed. The study outcome was
incident dementia in 6 years. Dementia was defined by presence of clinical dementia
in accordance with the 10th revision of the International Statistical Classification
of Diseases and Related Health Problems or Clinical Dementia Rating of 1 to 3.
Results
Both the cognitively stable and incident groups reported exercising a median of 7 days
per week and 45 minutes per day at baseline and Year 3. The former practiced aerobic
and mind-body exercises more at baseline and Year 3, whereas the latter practiced
stretching and toning exercises more. The odds ratio for dementia remained significant
for aerobic (0.81; 95% confidence interval 0.68–0.95; P = .01) and mind-body exercises (0.76; 0.63–0.92; P = .004) after excluding participants who developed dementia within 3 years after
baseline and adjusting for important potential confounders, such as age, gender, educational
level, and physical and psychiatric comorbidities.
Conclusion
Although physical exercise is widely promoted as a nonpharmacological intervention
for dementia prevention, not all types of exercise appear to be useful in reducing
risk of dementia in older people. Our findings suggest that daily participation in
aerobic and mind-body but not stretching and toning exercises might protect community-living
older adults from developing dementia.
Keywords
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Article info
Footnotes
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
This study was funded by the Health and Health Services Research Fund of the Government of Hong Kong in 2011 (grant 09100071), which had no role in the design, execution, analysis, and interpretation of data, or writing of the study.
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© 2015 AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
