Could Physical Activity Help Preserve Motor Function in Older Adults?

Higher levels of physical activity may help older people keep moving longer despite the late-life motor impairment that typically comes with age, according to a new study in Neurology.

“Our finding suggests that physical activity may build a biological reserve in the brain that may protect motor function from age-related brain damage,” says lead study author Debra A. Fleischman, PhD, of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.
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She and her colleagues analyzed data from 167 older adults without dementia who participated in the Rush Memory and Aging Project. The average age of participants was 80, and they wore movement monitors on their wrists for up to 11 days to measure total daily activity—which included both exercise and non-exercise activity.

The researchers used MRI scans to look at each patient’s volume of white-matter hyperintensities (WMHs), small areas of brain damage common with aging. Typically high levels of WMHs have been linked to more movement problems in older patients, but Fleischman and her team found that WMHs had no effect on motor function in older people who had the highest total daily physical activity (90th percentile).

In contrast, WMHs had a significant negative impact on motor function in those at the 50th percentile of daily physical activity and an even more detrimental effect for those in the 10th percentile of activity.

Compared to those at the 50th percentile, those in the 90th percentile had activity equal to walking at 2.5 mph for an additional 1.5 hours each day.

“The message to health care providers is that it is important to communicate to their patients how important daily physical activity is to building a ‘biological brain strength’ that may preserve motor function,” Fleischman says. “Protecting the ability to move will extend functional independence and preserve quality of life in old age.”

She stresses that patients do not have to be marathon runners to maintain motor function through physical activity as they age.  “Other papers that our group has published using this actigraphic method show that persons with the most total daily activity counts, however they are accumulated, are at the least risk of motor impairment and decline as they age,” Fleischman explains. “So the message is just keep moving in any way that is safe and that you enjoy!”  

Because the findings of this cross-sectional study cannot be interpreted as causal, Fleischman and her team plan to conduct longitudinal research to gain more insight into this association between physical activity and the preservation of motor function.

“We are collecting data on all of our variables-of-interest longitudinally in the same individuals, which will allow us to measure change over time compared to where the individual was on each of those variables at baseline,” she says. 

In addition, Fleischman and her colleagues will be examining the relationship of daily physical activity with other measurements of brain integrity on MRI scans in future studies.

—Colleen Mullarkey

Reference

Fleischman DA, Yang J, Arfanakis K, Arvanitakis Z, Leurgans SE, Turner AD, et al. Physical activity, motor function, and white matter hyperintensity burden in healthy older adults. Neurology. 11 March 2015. [Epub ahead of print].