Exercise effect on Alzheimers Essay

Submitted By atown1515
Words: 1003
Pages: 5

Exercise helps with Alzheimer’s disease Alzheimer’s disease and other dementing illnesses are major sources of mortality that affect millions of the elderly population usually going from the ages of 65 and older in the United States. However there have been many researches that help delay and even prevent the fatal disease. One of these researches was exercise, and how it can delay and reduce your rate in getting Alzheimer’s disease. Regular physical exercise is an important element in overall health promotion. Exercising preserves the brain function by increasing cerebral blood flow and increasing the oxygen delivery your brain gets (Rogers RL, 1990). The older you get your brain produces less and less hippocampal brain tissue which causes a kind of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Regular physical exercise can help produce more hippocampal brain tissue minimizing your risk in getting a disease (Gomez pinilla F, 1998). You may ask yourself well what regular exercise is? That is, walking, hiking, bicycling, aerobics or calisthenics, swimming, water aerobics, weight training, yoga or any other physical activity that gets your heart rate going (Larson, 2006). In this experiment they used 1740 people older than 65 without any cognitive impairment and used them. The participants were asked how many times a week for at least 15 minutes did they perform the exercises listed above. They came back for an evaluation about 6 years after. 107 patients developed Alzheimer’s disease and the rate of dementia was 13.0 per 1000 people who exercised 3 times or more a week and those who exercised 3 times or less it was 19.7 per 1000 people. The group of people that exercised at least 3 times a week had a 32 percent less chance in developing Alzheimer’s disease or some sort of dementia (Larson, 2006). Aerobic Exercise helps improve the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. Aerobic exercise is activities that improve oxygen consumption by the body, through the use of the large muscle groups in the body throughout a long period of time. When and adult has Alzheimer’s disease the brain has a buildup of amyloid plaques outside neurons and crumble neurons from within, because of this the brain is losing working neurons and neurotransmitters (Reisburg, 2004). Aerobic exercise helps alleviate the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease (Yu, 2009). This experiment they designed an exercise program that was safe and supervised. They had two participants. One was a 75 year old man, and the other was an 85 year old women. The exercise was recumbent stationary cycling. First the participants were tested to see if they could perform such activity. The protocol included of five minutes of warm-up activity, stretching, marching in place then 10-30 minutes of moderate-intensity cycling. Moderate intensity means 60-65% of maximal heart rate minus their age. To finish off they were to do 10 minutes of cool-down activities such as stretching and slowing down on your cycling. They were expected to do this 3 times a week for 2 months, doing more time and harder intensity every session. They were assigned trainers to supervise them throughout all of these activities in case of an emergency. In the end both participants completed the protocol and improved their symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. This shows that Alzheimer’s patients can take part in aerobic exercise without further more risking their state, but improving it (Yu, 2009). Evidence shows us that exercise reduces the deleterious effects of the biological and cognitive aging in humans. As you get older so does your brain. Exercise in older adults has shown to enhance efficiency of attentional processes, executive-control processes, cognition, and age related brain atrophy (Kramer AF, 1999). Studies also show that adults who exercise have reduced atrophy in the temporal and parietal cortices. Cardiorespiratory fitness is a therapeutic benefit to individuals with Alzheimer’s and the