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Walking regularly can combat dementia: Study
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According to a new study, the impacts of dementia can be lessened by walking just a few times a week. (Shutterstock/-)
Y
et another reason to take up walking has cropped up. According to a new study, the impacts of dementia can be lessened by walking just a few times a week.
Researchers at the University of British Columbia decided to take a look at exercise’s impact on vascular dementia by recruiting 38 people from British Columbia diagnosed with a mild form of vascular cognitive impairment, none of whom exercised, and tracked them over the course of the next six months.
They began by measuring their general health and testing their cognitive skills. After brain scans, they were randomly divided into two groups: one that would walk regularly and one that would act as the control and visit the lab for weekly sessions on healthy living.
“We wanted to have some intensity” in the exercise, said Teresa Liu-Ambrose, the study’s lead author and the director of the Aging, Mobility and Cognitive Neuroscience Lab at the University of British Columbia.
Read also: To reverse damage of sitting, take a brisk, hour-long walk
She continued by saying that the majority of the walkers managed to finish all of the sessions and “seemed to be enjoying the exercise” by the end of the trial, as quoted by The New York Times.
Once the trail was over, participants completed the same tests again and another brain scan found that the brains of the walkers appeared to have less activation within the parts of the brain that controlled rapid decision-making than those in the control group.
Still, Dr. Liu-Ambrose reminds those with memory or other cognitive problems that they should first consult with a doctor before exercising, and should not do so alone. (sul/kes)
