The differential effect of strength, cognitive and aerobic training combinations on cognitive performance and functional abilities in elderly with cognitive decline: The Fit4Alz project
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Despite the global impact of neurodegenerative diseases and ongoing research efforts, pharmacological therapies have shown limited benefits. In contrast, physical exercise, with no side effects, has emerged as a non-pharmacological alternative that can enhance brain structure and function, promoting a healthier neurological phenotype. OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to explore the effects of aerobic and strength training methods, both with and without cognitive training, on mitigating or reversing cognitive decline in older adults. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS: In a randomized controlled trial, a total of 350 participants (average age 72.9 ± 6.0 years, 79 % female), with signs of decline (MoCA score below 26), were assigned to one of five groups: i) strength plus cognitive training (STCT, n = 92); ii) strength training (ST, n = 41); iii) aerobic training (AT, n = 97); iv) aerobic plus cognitive training (ATCT, n = 91); v) control (CG, n = 29). INTERVENTION: For 12 weeks, all groups followed a 60 min training session three times a week, tailored to their specific group, with half of the sample adding 20 min of cognitive stimulation after the physical exercise. MEASUREMENTS: Cognitive and physical assessments were conducted at the start and end of the intervention using the MoCA and the Senior Fitness test. A mixed ANCOVA analysis revealed significant interactions between time and group for all tests. RESULTS: After the intervention, the CG showed significantly lower scores compared to all experimental groups. The CG also performed significantly worse than the ATCT group (p < 0.001). Additionally, the ATCT outperformed the STCT in the 6-min walk test (p < 0.05), while the STCT showed superior performance in the flexibility tests (sit and reach, back scratch) compared to the CG (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Results showed that 12-weeks of aerobic and strength training, with or without cognitive components, improved cognitive performance in older adults with cognitive decline, highlighting the importance of maintaining functional abilities for preserving skills, autonomy, independence, and quality of life in aging.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".