As the CBC reported, the panel expressed their doubt thus:

“We wish we could tell people that taking a pill or doing a puzzle every day would prevent this terrible disease, but current evidence doesn’t support this,” said Dr. Martha Daviglus, conference panel chair and professor of preventive medicine and medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago. The panel, however, said the public needs to understand such strategies are at best only loosely associated with an improved outcome. The cause-and-effect relationship, if any, is unclear, Daviglus said.

CAKEns contacted Dr. Kenneth Rockwood, a leading researcher into dementia who currently holds the Kathryn Allen Weldon Chair in Alzheimer’s research at Dalhousie University here in Nova Scotia, for comment on this.  His response:

There is a problem with these sorts of recommendations, which rely on “the evidence”.  The evidence is biased towards pharmacological interventions, which outnumber non-pharmacological interventions by hundreds to one.  So if the experts want to wait until there are multi-hundred person randomized controlled trials before daring to recommend exercise as a useful strategy in AD, we will wait a long time.  More valuable, it seems to me, are data from cohort studies, in which people who exercise and have AD can be compared against those who do not exercise, and have AD.  Although the design of a study like this means that we can never know for sure if exercise would work in people who take it up because they have AD, the data do allow some insight. (There are also elaborate reasons why we cannot know for sure from a randomized trial if the patient in front of us will benefit either, but that is another matter.)

Our analysis of data from the Canadian Study of Health and Aging suggests that there are cognitive benefits to exercise, even in people with dementia.  The open access reference for this work is: Middleton LE, Mitnitski A, Fallah N, Kirkland SA, Rockwood K.Changes in cognition and mortality in relation to exercise in late life: a population based study. PLoS One. 2008 Sep 1;3(9):e3124.

You can read the full report form the National Institutes of Health panel here.

A report from the Tufts University Program in Evidence-Based Complimentary and Alternative Medicine reports that “studies suggest that Tai Chi is a safe exercise, even for frail elders, and may be beneficial to various aspects of cardiovascular health. It requires no specialized equipment, is relatively inexpensive and can be taught/learned in a group setting. Tai Chi appears to elicit a cardiovascular response equivalent to that associated with moderate intensity exercise, and as such meets the American College of Sports Medicine, American Heart Association, and Centers for Disease Control recommendations for daily performance of low- to moderate-intensity activities.”

And in the November issue of Arthritis Care & Research, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology, researchers reported “that patients over 65 years of age with knee osteoarthritis (OA) who engage in regular Tai Chi exercise improve physical function and experience less pain. Tai Chi (Chuan) is a traditional style of Chinese martial arts that features slow, rhythmic movements to induce mental relaxation and enhance balance, strength, flexibility, and self-efficacy.”

If you would like to learn more about Tai Chi, or even give it a try, you can check out the website of the International Taoist Tai Chi Society – Atlantic Region. Here you will find information on classes all over Nova Scotia.

“The subjects were divided into two groups to either receive three months of vigorous physical activity (one hour, three times per week) or to get no aerobic exercise at all. Subjects were classified as sedentary at the beginning of the study but gradually increased their fitness levels until they were working at 70 per cent of their maximum heart rate, using treadmills and cycling machines. They were supervised by a certified exercise trainer.”

While some may worry about the high level of activity engaged in by the participants, Dr Madden says “There seems to be a knee-jerk reluctance to getting these older adults to exercise yet we used a vigorous level of activity and didn’t have any trouble keeping participants in our study. They enjoyed the activity. People always underestimate what older adults can do.”

He also notes, however, that many people need a kick start to motivate them into a regular fitness program.  In aid of this, you can visit the Nova Scotia Department of Health Promotion and Protection’s Senior section here, and find your local YMCA here. You can visit the Canadian Cardiovascular Society’s website here.