EXERCISE
& THE ELDERLY
Fit seniors better able to react when quick
thinking needed, study says
Melissa
Mitchell, News Editor
(217) 333-5491; melissa@illinois.edu
6/1/02
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. —
The senior citizen who swims, jogs, plays tennis or participates in some type
of regular exercise program is likely to be better prepared to respond to situations
requiring quick thinking than a peer who logs too much time in the recliner.
So say researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who examined
the effects of physical activity history on electrocortical indices of executive
control in older adults.
Kinesiology professor Charles Hillman presented the results of the study in
a paper titled "Aging, Physical Activity and Executive Control Function"
at the annual conference of the American College of Sports Medicine in St. Louis
May 29-June 1. Co-authors with Hillman are kinesiology professor Edward McAuley
and psychology professor Arthur Kramer, and graduate students Artem Belopolsky
and Erin Snook.
In the study, the Illinois researchers employed a series of tests designed to
measure cognitive responses of 32 people assigned to four categories: older
adults who reported low, moderate, and high levels of physical activity in their
day-to-day routines, along with a control group of college-age adults. The older
adults had a median age of 66. Hillman said the study focused on the relationship
between exercise and aging on "executive control function," or ECF,
which he described as "cognitive processes which require more effort and
are largely mediated by the (brain’s) frontal lobes."
An example of a more simple cognitive process, he said, occurs when a driver
stopped at a red light proceeds automatically as the light turns green. Greater
amounts of ECF kick in when a driver starts to move forward, then slams on the
brakes to avoid hitting an obstacle that suddenly appears in the intersection.
"ECF requires a more conscious effort to negotiate the environment,"
Hillman said.
In the Illinois study, the measured responses to neuro-electric stimuli among
people in the "high active older adults" group more closely resembled
those of the younger adults than those of peers reporting exercise histories
in the low or moderate range. The researchers also discovered motor preparation
differences among the participants. "We find that active and sedentary
older adults differ in the way they select the correct response," Belopolsky
said. "Results for physically active older adults indicate that they prepare
more efficiently for a response than sedentary older adults."
Overall, Hillman said, the study shows that "increased amounts of physical
activity affect cognitive functioning related to more effortful processing results
in older adults." Or, in more simple terms: "Physical activity appears
to be beneficial to older adults."
Hillman, Kramer and McAuley are among a group of researchers collaborating in
the university's newly established Initiative on Aging, an interdisciplinary
program created to contribute to knowledge of the aging process, to improve
the quality of life for the aging population, and to reduce healthcare costs
for the aging.