Written by Patrick Massey, M.D., Ph.D. Exercise has been found to be beneficial at all ages. It improves all medical conditions and amazingly even helps institutionalized elderly people with Alzheimer’s.
“Lack of activity destroys the good condition of every human being, while movement and methodical physical exercise save it and preserve it.” – Plato.
The most important aspect of lifestyle is physical exercise. It is probably more important than the food we eat, the air we breathe and the water we drink. Physical exercise brings the body into balance, detoxifies, improves the immune system, strengthens the heart, lowers blood pressure and helps mental functioning.
In our society, however, physical exercise tends to be the last item on our daily checklist. Some of us believe that we if lead a very active lifestyle, we don’t need extra exercise – and we would be wrong. Some of us might feel that there are more important things than exercise – and again we would be wrong.
Exercise is beneficial at all ages, improves all medical conditions and amazingly even helps institutionalized, elderly people with Alzheimer’s.
For a number of reasons, taking care of institutionalized elderly people can be difficult. They can easily become disoriented and agitated. In addition, their sleep patterns are often erratic. They might sleep during the day and then are awake at night.
Traditionally, medications are used to counteract the agitation as well as sleep disturbances. But medications do have side effects and the side effects seem to manifest themselves more strongly in the elderly.
Over the past three years, several studies have demonstrated that if institutionalized, cognitively impaired elderly have the opportunity for regular exercise, their sleep patterns normalize, agitation improves and use of psychoactive medications decreases – along with the side effects.
One recent study, at St. Louis University School of Medicine in Missouri, involved 50 severely cognitively impaired nursing home residents. In this study, residents participated in a supervised exercise program, three days a week, for three weeks. The exercise program lasted about 20 minutes and involved primarily walking, light weightlifting and throwing a ball.
Compliance with the program was excellent. The participants looked forward to their exercise class and were enthusiastic in their participation.
All participants had significant decreases in agitation, measured on a standardized scale. Interestingly, patients with the highest initial agitation scores had the best results. Improvements in sleep patterns were also noted but not quantified.
The studies are very important for a number of reasons. They demonstrate that quality of life can be improved in severely cognitively patients by very simple exercise programs. In addition the studies demonstrated that the benefits of exercise are quickly realized, within three weeks, resulting in improved sleep, decreased agitation and less use of medication.
If an exercise program can be so effective for elderly people with cognitive impairment, it makes me wonder whether the increase in many diagnoses might be related, in some measure, to a decrease in regular physical activity. Obviously regular physical exercise, either at nursing home or in gym class at school, is more important than we realize.
Posted July 27, 2009.
