How much does physical activity impact cognitive decline in older adults?

Physical activity in older adults doesn’t do as much as hoped to delay cognitive decline–at least not in the long term.A systemic review and meta-analysis found that associations between baseline physical activity and follow-up global cognition were weak, including for episodic memory and verbal fluency. “However, even a weak association is important from a population health perspective,” said researchers in JAMA Network Open.But the authors noted that “Despite the optimism surrounding physical activity as a means to preserve or improve cognition, many recent high-quality interventional studies urge caution in claims linking cognitive benefits to physical activity, and most existing evidence comes from observational studies with short follow-ups and no information on preceding levels of cognition.”They conducted a study to examine how length of follow-up, baseline age, physical activity, and the quality of studies on the topic affected associations of physical activity with cognition over time. The meta-analysis included 104 studies with a combined 341,471 participants. They were all prospective cohort studies or case-control studies presenting associations between baseline physical activity and cognition after at least one year of follow-up in adults 20 years of age or older.Forty-five of the studies, which totalled 102,452 participants, had binary outcomes meaning cognitive impairment or decline, or no cognitive impairment or decline. Fourteen studies with 41,045 individuals had follow-up global cognition; and 25 studies comprising 67,463 individuals included an analysis of change in global cognition. Overall, physical activity was associated with a decreased risk of cognitive impairment or decline. But after adjusting for factors such as the quality and size of studies, the type of study, the quality of activity, bias, and other factors, it was found there were only minimal associations between physical activity and cognition.Studies were considered to be high quality if they included follow-up of at least 10 years, a measurement of baseline cognition, and very high participation and follow-up rates. They noted that such high-quality studies were rare.Overall “the association between physical activity and cognitive decline was very small, with no evident dose-response association,” the study said.

How much does physical activity impact cognitive decline in older adults?

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