Home Exercise Helps People with Alzheimer's Disease

Source: Tufts University
December 12, 2003

Alzheimer's disease is debilitating in many ways - it can restrict people mentally, physically, and behaviorally, often resulting in poor physical health and depression. As a result, people with Alzheimer's disease often require institutional care. A new study, however, has demonstrated that a home-based program of regular exercise, along with specialized training for caregivers on behavior modification, improves health and depression in people with Alzheimer's disease, and may delay the need for institutionalization. The results are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Aiming to delay institutionalization

Researchers set out to determine whether a home-based exercise program along with training caregivers in behavioral management would "reduce functional dependence and delay institutionalization among patients with Alzheimer's disease."

They studied 153 people with Alzheimer's disease who lived at home. Patients were randomly assigned to one of two groups: one group received exercise and caregiver training (the experimental group), while the other group received routine medical care. Patients in both groups were assessed by the researchers at screening, baseline, after 3 months of treatment, and again at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months post-treatment.

Combining exercise and caregiver training

The patients and caregivers in the experimental group received 12 one-hour-long sessions in their homes (twice a week for the first 3 weeks, once a week for the next 4 weeks, and then bi-weekly for the next 4 weeks). The exercise program included exercises for aerobic endurance, strength, balance, and flexibility, with a goal of 30 minutes a day of moderately intense exercise. In their training, caregivers were taught "how to identify and modify patient behavioral problems that impaired day-to-day function and adversely affected patient-caregiver interactions."

Training shows improvements

The researchers used several assessments of physical health and depression to determine what effects, if any, the program had on participants' physical and mental health.

At the end of 3 months, the patients in the experimental group had fewer days of restricted activity - days when they were limited in the amount of activity they could engage in - compared with patients in the routine care group. They also had improved scores on physical functioning and depression assessments, whereas patients in the routine care group had worsened scores. At 2 years, the experimental group patients continued to have better physical functioning scores and tended to be less likely to have been institutionalized due to behavioral problems, compared with patients in the routine care group (19% of the experimental versus 50% of the routine care group).

The researchers caution that further studies are necessary to determine whether their results "can be replicated or improved." In the meantime, this study may be welcome news for people with Alzheimer's disease and the people who care for them.

Source

• Exercise plus behavioral management in patients with Alzheimer disease: a randomized controlled trial. L. Teri, LE. Gibbons, SM. McCurry,  et al., JAMA, 2003, vol. 290, pp. 2015--2022

Related Links
One More Time . . .Use It or Lose It?
Aerobic Fitness May Preserve Mental Capabilities
Exercise Aids Stressed Caregivers
To quickly access additional accurate information on this and other nutrition-related topics, visit Tufts University's Nutrition Navigator

Please take a moment to give us your comments. For questions about Health matters you may check our "Questions & Answers" Portal and Service.