Agitation and functioning improved in a group of elderly nursing home residents suffering from severe dementia when they engaged in just 30 minutes of supervised exercise three times a week.....By Bob DeMarco
If you put the word exercise in the search box of this blog you will find more articles than you could read in a day.
I write often about how I believe the single most important thing to do with/for a person suffering from Alzheimer's is to exercise.
I write repeatedly about how exercise transforms my mother from a zombie like state to a person with a smile on her face.
In part, exercise explains how I was able to transform my mother from being very mean and angry into a person more like her former self --before Alzheimer's.
Lately, several people told me their loved one can't exercise. The article below seems to refute this claim. Although, I have no real way of knowing in any given situation whether the person is or isn't capable of exercise.
I can tell you this. My mother walks at the pace of a snail. You actually have to learn how to walk with her. It is very difficult to walk that slow. Usually when I tell some one this they laugh -- they don't laugh after they try it. In fact, they are then amazed that I can do it with ease. Well, I had to learn to do it.
When my mother walks she holds on to anything she can grab. This includes when I am holding her hand. The walls, a hedge, leans over and holds on to the hood of car -- you name it.
Nevertheless, my mother can walk on a treadmill. She now walks at the pace of a 85 minute mile, but walk she does. PS -- My mother is not on a walker. And, she doesn't fall.
My mother can also work out on weight machines. Giver her a hand weight and she wants one pound. Put her on the machine and its anywhere from 15-30 pounds.
Did I mention she is 93 years old and suffers from Alzheimer's disease.
Before you get to the article below I have one more thing to say.
Some researcher or research group has to get up to the Lakeview Ranch and find out what Judy Berry is doing with Alzheimer's patients. Patients that nobody else wants or will take. They could make their "nut" by examining what Judy is accomplishing.
Exercise calms agitation associated with dementiaSubscribe to The Alzheimer's Reading Room
NEW YORK (Reuters Health)
Edris Aman, a second-year medical student at Saint Louis University School of Medicine in Missouri, who conducted the study, told Reuters Health:
"Lots of people just assume that people with this kind of (severe) dementia cannot follow exercise instructions, but they can. It just takes more patience on the part of the exercise coordinator."Aman said his study is unique because it involved people suffering from severe dementia who were living in the "special needs" units of two nursing homes. The 50 study participants, whose average age was 79, performed 15 minutes of aerobic exercise and 15 minutes of weight lifting three times a week.
"Before and after" tests revealed that patients were far less agitated after completing the 3-week exercise program. They also showed significant improvement in their functional status -- specifically, the distance they could walk in six minutes.
Aman, who presented his research today at the annual meeting of the American Geriatrics Society, said there didn't seem to be an improvement in depression with exercise; however, this was a "very low dose of exercise," he said, and "there are a lot of studies that are emerging" that do show a benefit of exercise on depression.
The take-home message, Aman said, is that "exercise benefits all; even those with severe dementia can reap the benefits of exercise if people are patient enough."
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Bob DeMarco is the editor of the Alzheimer's Reading Room and an Alzheimer's caregiver. Bob has written more than 1,050 articles with more than 8,000 links on the Internet. Bob resides in Delray Beach, FL.
Original content Bob DeMarco, Alzheimer's Reading Room
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