Physical Activity, Brain Volume, and Dementia Risk: The Framingham Study

Your doctor will need to contact the researchers to find out what low levels of activity are defined as. You need this because of the risk of dementia post stroke.
1. A documented 33% dementia chance post-stroke from an Australian study?   May 2012.
2. Then this study came out and seems to have a range from 17-66%. December 2013.
3. A 20% chance in this research.   July 2013.
If you have anything close to a competent? doctor a protocol will already be in place to prevent this from occurring.   
 

Physical Activity, Brain Volume, and Dementia Risk: The Framingham Study

1. Zaldy S. Tan¹,²,*,
2. Nicole L. Spartano²,³,*,
3. Alexa S. Beiser²,⁴,⁵,
4. Charles DeCarli⁶,
5. Sanford H. Auerbach²,⁴,
6. Ramachandran S. Vasan²,³ and
7. Sudha Seshadri²

+ Author Affiliations

1. ¹ Division of Geriatric Medicine, Department of Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California Los Angeles.
2. ² The Framingham Heart Study, Massachusetts.
3. ³ Section of Preventative Medicine and Epidemiology and
4. ⁴ Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine, Massachusetts.
5. ⁵ Department of Biostatistics, Boston University School of Public Health, Massachusetts.
6. ⁶ Department of Neurology, University of California Davis.
7. *These authors contributed equally to this work.

1. Address correspondence to Zaldy S. Tan, MD, MPH, UCLA Alzheimer’s and Dementia Care Program, 10945 Le Conte Avenue, Ste 2339, Los Angeles, CA 90024. E-mail: ztan@mednet.ucla.edu

• Received December 4, 2015.
• Accepted June 19, 2016.

Abstract

Background: Several longitudinal studies found an inverse relationship between levels of physical activity and cognitive decline, dementia, and/or Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but results have been inconsistent. We followed an older, community-based cohort for over a decade to examine the association of physical activity with the risk of incident dementia and subclinical brain MRI markers of dementia.

Methods: The physical activity index (PAI) was assessed in the Framingham Study Original and Offspring cohorts, aged 60 years or older. We examined the association between PAI and risk of incident all-cause dementia and AD in participants of both cohorts who were cognitively intact and had available PAI (n = 3,714; 54% women; mean age = 70±7 years). We additionally examined the association between PAI and brain MRI in the Offspring cohort (n = 1,987).

Results: Over a decade of follow-up, 236 participants developed dementia (188 AD). Participants in the lowest quintile of PAI had an increased risk of incident dementia compared with those in higher quintiles (hazard ratio [HR] = 1.50, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.04–1.97, p = .028) in a multivariable-adjusted model. Secondary analysis revealed that this relation was limited to participants who were apolipoprotein (APO)E ε4 allele noncarriers (HR = 1.58, 95% CI = 1.08–2.32; p = .018) and strongest in participants aged 75 years or older. PAI was also linearly related to total brain and hippocampal volumes (β ± SE = 0.24±0.06; p < .01 and 0.004±0.001; p = .003, respectively).

Conclusion: Low physical activity is associated with a higher risk for dementia in older individuals, suggesting that a reduced risk of dementia and higher brain volumes may be additional health benefits of maintaining physical activity into old age.