If you are a senior citizen at risk of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, you should do more aerobics and stretching, according to a new study from Wake Forest School of Medicine. “There’s just more understanding of the underlying biology and what potential treatments can impact the disease, which actually includes exercise,†Maria Carillo, Chief Science Officer of the Alzheimer’s Association, told USA Today. For the study, researchers recruited those with a sedentary lifestyle and assigned them to two groups. One group regularly engaged in moderate to high intensity aerobics while the other group did less rigorous exercise. All participants had mild cognitive impairment, but not enough to be diagnosed with dementia. This is great news for a disease which researchers have had little success in finding drug treatments for. Regular readers of my blog know that both my father and my grandmother had this terrible disease when they passed away. There is a wonderful group of people at the Alzheimer’s Association in Monterey. They also have a 24-hour hotline if you just need some support at 800-272-3900.
