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Exercise Helps Patients with Alzheimer's Disease
DENVER (Nov. 15, 2004) — November is National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month and a recent study at the University of Colorado Denver points to exercise as an excellent way to prevent the mind from forgetting.
Patricia Heyn, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow with the division of geriatric medicine at UCD, says physical exercise can significantly benefit older people with dementia by dramatically improving their attitude, motor skills and cognitive abilities. By creating a multi-sensory exercise program that stimulates the senses through combining physical and cognitive stimuli, Heyn tested how physical activity might enrich the mental health and quality of life for elderly people with Alzheimer's.
Alzheimer's is a progressive brain disorder that causes loss of memory and mental abilities, eventually leading to dementia. It affects a person's ability to learn, reason, remember and communicate. There is no cure and there is no single cause. About 4 million Americans currently have Alzheimer's and it's estimated to increase to 14 million by 2050.
Heyn says that when she originally started the exercise therapy program, the participants were moody and uncooperative, and it was hard to hold their attention for even 10 minutes. After eight weeks working with them three times a week, she had worked up to 70-minute sessions.
"Elderly patients with Alzheimer's are typically frustrated, depressed and disconnected from their environment because they can't communicate," Heyn said. "When the same patients participate in exercise, they become engaged and happy and begin to follow instructions. When you physically engage people, they perform better."
Heyn also believes it is important to engage patients' minds. In a typical session she might take nursing home residents on an imaginary trip to England where they bake a cake for the Queen. With music evoking the flavor of the British Isles playing in the background, she guides them through their make-believe journey, stirring batter, frosting the cake and having tea with the Queen.
"I create a moment of imagination for them," she said. "It's very important that therapy connects them with their environment in a multi-sensorial approach. When provided with stimuli, the brain has to somehow become aware of what's going on — it has to conceptualize — so you connect different parts of the brain."
The findings of her research suggest that exercise not only improves fitness, increases blood flow and oxygen to the brain and jump-starts metabolism, but it noticeably improves the ability to think and speak more clearly. The improvement in fitness was expected, but a surprising result was that after exercising, the patients were more alert, more communicative and less agitated and anxious.
Heyn, who received the 2004 Presidential Award from the American Society of Neurorehabilitation, presented her paper on The Effects of Exercise Rehabilitation on Dementia, Including Alzheimer's Disease at the sixth international Argentinean Congress of Neuropsychology held in Buenos Aires, Argentina earlier this month. She was the only researcher from the U.S. invited to present.
The University of Colorado Denver is one of three campuses in the University of Colorado system. Located in Denver and Aurora, Colo., the center includes schools of medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and dentistry, a graduate school and a teaching hospital. For more information, visit the Web site at www.uchsc.edu.