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Regular Exercise Improves Minds of Elderly Women with Dementia

Submitted by Willa on Tue, 07/08/2008 - 14:06.

A new study from Busan, Korea found that elderly women with dementia who exercise two to three times a week for six months to a year improve their mental faculties and daily functioning by 20%. When that time period was extended to a year, their scores improved by 30%. The control group--the women who did not exercise regularly--saw no improvement whatsoever.

The study followed 30 women with an average age of 80 over the course of a year. Half of them exercised, the other half did not. The participants were evaluated on mental abilities "through tests that determine orientation to time and place, memory recall, identifying and remembering objects, reading, and writing."

While this is a small study, it confirms what wellness practitioners have known for a long time: the mind and body are connected.

For example, a Duke University study found that depression patients who exercise three times a week for four months overcame their depression. That success rate is exactly the same as when patients took antidepressants for the same period of time without exercise.

You don't need to be suffering from a documented disease to benefit mentally and emotionally from exercise. Even short workouts of eight minutes a day can drastically reduce anger and tension in healthy people.