Written by Greg Arnold, DC, CSCS. Six months of once weekly music-based multitask training was associated with improved cognitive function and decreased anxiety in community-dwelling older adults, compared to non-exercising controls.
High level cognitive functioning and mood are closely linked to old age and the ability to adequately and safely navigate the activities of everyday living. Aging is often associated with a decline in physical function, in particular the ability to walk and maintain balance, all of which can increase the risk of falling and significantly increase mortality 1. Therefore, physical exercise, often a prescribed therapy to postpone or slow down age-related decline in our aging population, can benefit overall brain function, particularly cognitive functioning and mood 2,3.
However, research has also found that higher-level cognitive function is a “critical determinant” of the ability to cope efficiently and safely with both basic and more elaborate everyday life activities such as multitasking while walking. 4,5. Consequently, finding ways to maintain higher-level cognitive function in our aging population is crucial to decreasing falls and improving overall quality of life 6.
In a 2014 study 7, 134 community-dwelling older adults (5 men, 129 women) between the ages of 68 and 83 participated for six months in either one hour per week of supervised group exercise classes (66 subjects) or a control group (66 subjects) that had no exercise training. The classes consisted of several multitask exercises of progressive difficulty, as well as basic exercises that were performed while walking to the rhythm of piano music. Both groups maintained their usual lifestyle habits during this time. Before and after the study, each subject completed tests measuring mental health, anxiety, and focus.
After 6 months, the researchers noted improvements in the following areas:
- Decreased anxiety. Those in the music group saw a 12.7% decrease in overall anxiety (7.1 to 6.2) compared to a 2.8% decrease in the control group (7.3 to 7.1, p = 0.039).
- Mental focus. When the subjects were multi-tasking, researchers measured their “sensitivity to interference” to determine which participants were able to complete their tasks despite outside disturbances from the researchers. In this subset, the piano group increased their focus by 1.7% (2.89 to 2.94) compared to a 2.8% decrease in focus in the control group (2.91 to 2.83, p = 0.047).
- Overall mental health in the piano group. While no overall difference was seen between the two groups regarding overall mental health (p > 0.05), those in the piano group whose mental score had increased above 24 in the Mini-mental State Exam, significantly improved their mental health 8 (p < 0.005 for within-group change score from baseline.)
- Within-group analysis for global test scores. There was an increase in MMSE score in the piano group from baseline to 6 months (from 25.9 ± 2.7 to 26.9 ± 2.1; t-test, p= 0.004), and a reduction in the number of piano group participants with impaired global cognitive performance (i.e., MMSE score ≤23) (McNemar’s test, p = 0.003).
Study limitations include the inability of this study design to measure neuropsychological between- group differences. Also, longer than 6-month training sessions might more effectively detect cognitive functional improvements in participants. Of note, this study did find that “six months of once weekly music-based multitask training was associated with improved cognitive function and decreased anxiety in community-dwelling older adults at increased risk for falling compared to non-exercising controls”. The researchers recommend additional studies to “further delineate the training-induced changes in cognitive function, and the extent to which these changes might improve walking while dual-tasking and contribute to less falls.
Source: Hars, Mélany, Francois R. Herrmann, Gabriel Gold, René Rizzoli, and Andrea Trombetti. “Effect of music-based multitask training on cognition and mood in older adults.” Age and ageing 43, no. 2 (2013): 196-200.
© The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society.
Posted April 13, 2018.
References:
- Howe TE, Rochester L, Neil F, Skelton DA, Ballinger C. Exercise for improving balance in older people. The Cochrane Library. 2011.
- Buitenweg JI, Murre JM, Ridderinkhof KR. Brain training in progress: a review of trainability in healthy seniors. Frontiers in human neuroscience. 2012;6:183.
- Hindin SB, Zelinski EM. Extended practice and aerobic exercise interventions benefit untrained cognitive outcomes in older adults: A meta‐analysis. Journal of the American Geriatrics Society. 2012;60(1):136-141.
- Herman T, Mirelman A, Giladi N, Schweiger A, Hausdorff JM. Executive control deficits as a prodrome to falls in healthy older adults: a prospective study linking thinking, walking, and falling. Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biomedical Sciences and Medical Sciences. 2010;65(10):1086-1092.
- Segev-Jacubovski O, Herman T, Yogev-Seligmann G, Mirelman A, Giladi N, Hausdorff JM. The interplay between gait, falls and cognition: can cognitive therapy reduce fall risk? Expert review of neurotherapeutics. 2011;11(7):1057-1075.
- Liu-Ambrose T, Nagamatsu LS, Hsu CL, Bolandzadeh N. Emerging concept:‘central benefit model’of exercise in falls prevention. Br J Sports Med. 2012:bjsports-2011-090725.
- Hars M, Herrmann FR, Gold G, Rizzoli R, Trombetti A. Effect of music-based multitask training on cognition and mood in older adults. Age and ageing. 2013;43(2):196-200.
- O’Bryant SE, Humphreys JD, Smith GE, et al. Detecting dementia with the mini-mental state examination in highly educated individuals. Archives of neurology. 2008;65(7):963-967.
