Her colleague, Nader Fallah, Ph.D., also of the University of British Columbia, used his expertise in biostatistics to explore that problem. Using a similar cohort of women, he found that those with higher baseline cognitive function reaped the greatest benefit from resistance training.
Dr. Fallah conducted a secondary analysis of a 12-month, randomized, controlled trial of 155 women aged 65-75 years (Neurobiol. Aging 2012;33:1690-8). The women were assigned to resistance training or balance and tone training.
This new analysis found that women with lower baseline functioning not only experienced less improvement from exercise, but also responded equally to both resistance training and balance and tone training.
"To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate that an individual’s baseline self-regulatory capacity impacts the amount of cognitive benefit the person will reap from targeted exercise training," Dr. Fallah said in a written statement.
Dr. Liu-Ambrose said the study sheds valuable light on the concept of personalizing exercise prescriptions.
"I think this brings us another dimension to consider," Dr. Liu-Ambrose said. "When we prescribe exercise, most of the time we focus on physical ability: ‘Can the knees take it, what is the cardiovascular state?’ But people who have better executive function at baseline can execute this prescription better. They can plan their time, prioritize their activities, and follow through with the commitment."
Dr. Fallah’s findings suggest that "cognitive priming" might improve outcomes in prescribed exercise. Computerized brain training games are one thing to consider. They’ve been shown to improve memory and executive function for both cognitively healthy and impaired older adults. Just a small improvement in executive function and memory could be enough to get a patient invested in an exercise program.
"But for those with more pronounced dementia, it’s really about engaging the caregiver," Dr. Liu-Ambrose concluded. "We need to give them the tools they need to implement this as part of the daily lives of their loved ones."
None of the researchers reported having any financial conflicts of interest.