An extensive study that looked at whether mindfulness training and exercise could improve cognitive performance in older persons showed no such improvement after either intervention.

Researchers from the University of California, San Diego and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis examined the cognitive benefits of exercise, mindfulness practise, or both in older adults who reported age-related memory changes but had not yet been identified as having dementia for up to 18 months.

The findings are published in JAMA.

“We know beyond any doubt that exercise is good for older adults, that it can lower risk for cardiac problems, strengthen bones, improve mood and have other beneficial effects — and there has been some thought that it also might improve cognitive function,” said the study’s first author, Eric J. Lenze, MD, the Wallace and Lucille Renard Professor and head of the Department of Psychiatry at Washington University. “Likewise, mindfulness training is beneficial because it reduces stress, and stress can be bad for your brain. Therefore, we hypothesized that if older adults exercised regularly, practiced mindfulness or did both there might be cognitive benefits — but that’s not what we found.” Lenze and his colleagues still want to see whether there may be some cognitive effects over a longer time period, so they plan to continue studying this group of older adults to learn whether exercise and mindfulness might help prevent future cognitive declines. In this study, however, the practices did not boost cognitive function.

“So many older adults are concerned about memory,” said senior author Julie Wetherell, PhD, a professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego. “It’s important for studies like ours to develop and test behavioral interventions to try to provide them with neuroprotection and stress reduction as well as general health benefits.”            Source: ANI