NEW YORK — Patients with early Alzheimer’s disease who exercised regularly saw less deterioration in the areas of the brain that control memory, according to a study released Sunday at the 2008 International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Chicago.
Magnetic resonance imaging studies showed that exercise positively affected the hippocampus region of patients’ brains, an area that is important for both memory and balance. In Alzheimer’s, the hippocampus is one of the first parts of the brain to suffer damage.
Exercise and physical fitness have been shown to slow down age-related brain-cell death in healthy older adults, and earlier this month a preliminary study was published showing that exercise may help slow brain shrinkage in people with early Alzheimer’s disease.
“This is the first study to get an inside look into specifically where these changes occur in the brain — we’re able to locate the changes associated with fitness to the actual memory region, the hippocampus,” said Robyn Honea, a lead investigator on the study at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan.
The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging and National Institute on Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
Another report showed that a 12-month home-based exercise program reduced falls and improved balance in patients with dementia.
