Department/School

Psychology, Professional

Date of this version

2015

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Little is known about how aerobic exercise affects Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The purpose of this pilot study was to test the impact of 6-month cycling on AD symptoms in community-dwelling older adults with mild-to-moderate AD, using a single-group, repeated-measures design (n = 26). AD symptoms were measured with the AD Assessment Scale–Cognitive (ADAS-Cog), Disability in AD (DAD), and Neuropsychiatric Inventory–Caregiver (NPI-Q) scales at baseline, 3 and 6 months. Data were analyzed using mixed linear models. The ADAS-Cog, DAD, and NPI-Q severity scores remained unchanged over the 6-month period, while caregiver distress decreased 40% (p < .05). We conclude that aerobic exercise may reduce AD symptoms and appears effective in decreasing caregiver distress. Further randomized controlled trials are needed to examine the effects of aerobic exercise in AD.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1177/0733464813512895

Volume

34

Issue

4

Published in

Journal of Applied Gerontology

Citation/Other Information

Yu, F., Thomas, W., Nelson, N. W., Bronas, U. G., Dysken, M., & Wyman, J. F. (2015). Impact of 6-month aerobic exercise on Alzheimer’s symptoms. Journal of Applied Gerontology, 34(4), 484-500. https://doi.org/10.1177/0733464813512895

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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