Abstract.Background: Studies of physical exercise in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) are few and results have been inconsistent. Objective: To assess the effects of a moderate-to-high intensity aerobic exercise program in patients with mild AD. Methods: In a randomized controlled trial, we recruited 200 patients with mild AD to a supervised exercise group (60-min sessions three times a week for 16 weeks) or to a control group. Primary outcome was changed from baseline in cognitive performance estimated by Symbol Digit Modalities Test (SDMT) in the intention-to-treat (ITT) group. Secondary outcomes included changes in quality of life, ability to perform activities of daily living, and in neuropsychiatric and depressive symptoms. Results: The ITT analysis showed no significant differences between intervention and control groups in change from baseline of SDMT, other cognitive tests, quality of life, or activities of daily living. The change from baseline in Neuropsychiatric Inventory differed significantly in favor of the intervention group (mean: -3.5, 95% confidence interval (CI) -5.8 to -1.3, p = 0.002). In subjects who adhered to the protocol, we found a significant effect on change from baseline in SDMT as compared with the control group (mean: 4.2, 95% CI 0.5 to 7.9, p = 0.028), suggesting a dose-response relationship between exercise and cognition. * Correspondence to: Professor, DMSc, MD, Steen G. K. Hoffmann et al. / Aerobic exercise in Alzheimer's diseaseConclusions: This is the first randomized controlled trial with supervised moderate-to-high intensity exercise in patients with mild AD. Exercise reduced neuropsychiatric symptoms in patients with mild AD, with possible additional benefits of preserved cognition in a subgroup of patients exercising with high attendance and intensity.

Background/Aims: To examine the mortality of very mildly to severely demented persons compared to nondemented persons. Methods: Participants in a randomly drawn population-based cohort study on dementia were followed for 14 years from 1992 to 2006. Participants were examined at baseline (3,065 nondemented and 234 prevalent demented), after 2 years (2,286 nondemented and 145 incident demented) and again after 5 years (1,669 nondemented and 124 new cases of dementia). Causes of death were ascertained in 884 nondemented and 286 demented participants. Survival for demented compared to nondemented persons was analyzed with the Cox proportional hazards model with time-dependent covariates adjusted for gender and age. Results: The hazard ratio of death (95% confidence interval) increased from 1.82 (1.55–2.14) for the very mildly demented to 9.52 (6.60–13.74) for the severely demented subjects. The demented participants died significantly more often of neurological causes other than dementia and of pneumonia than the nondemented participants. No other significant differences in causes of death were found. Conclusion: Dementia increased the risk of death. Even in the very early stages of dementia the risk of death was increased.

This study shows that it is the general effect of age, rather than AAO that is associated with incident dementia in subjects with PD.

Depression was associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer disease. The odds ratios were lower than generally reported from follow-up studies and are similar to cross-sectional studies.