Poor physical fitness is independently associated with mild cognitive impairment in elderly Koreans

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between physical fitness and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in elderly Koreans. This was a cross-sectional study that involved 134 men and 299 women aged 65 to 88 years. Six senior fitness tests were used as independent variables: 30 s chair stand for lower body strength, arm curl for upper body strength, chair-sit-and-reach for lower body flexibility, back scratch for upper body flexibility, 8-ft up-and-go for agility/dynamic balance, and 2-min walk for aerobic endurance. Global cognitive function was assessed using the Korean version of the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). Potential covariates such as age, education levels, blood lipids, and insulin resistance (IR) markers were also assessed. Compared to individuals without MMSE-based MCI, individuals with MMSE-based MCI had poor physical fitness based on the senior fitness test (SFT). There were significant positive trends observed for education level (p=0.001) and MMSE score (p<0.001) across incremental levels of physical fitness in this study population. Individuals with moderate (OR=0.341, p=0.006) and high (OR=0.271, p=0.007) physical fitness based on a composite score of the SFT measures were less likely to have MMSE-based MCI than individuals with low physical fitness (referent, OR=1). The strength of the association between moderate (OR=0.377, p=0.038) or high (OR=0.282, p=0.050) physical fitness and MMSE-based MCI was somewhat attenuated but remained statistically significant even after adjustment for the measured compounding factors. We found that poor physical fitness was independently associated with MMSE-based MCI in elderly Koreans.

Relationships between socio‐clinico‐demographic factors and global cognitive function in the oldest old living in the Tokyo Metropolitan area: Reanalysis of the Tokyo Oldest Old Survey on Total Health (TOOTH)

“…Consistent with our finding, previous studies have demonstrated that lower functional mobility is associated with lower global cognitive function, as well as executive function and processing speed . These studies included not only community‐dwelling older adults but also older people who were institutionalized, consisting of those with a variety of cognitive level from normal to pathological conditions such as MCI and dementia.…”

The Association between Physical Fitness with Successful Ageing and Risk of Cognitive Impairment among Malaysian Older Adults

“…Poor flexibility may not represent limited joint motion, but it rather affects the physical functioning and independence. Study conducted by Lee et al (2016) to evaluate the relationship between SFT and cognitive function also reported that upper body flexibility as assessed using back scratch test and agility as assessed using 8 foot up-and-go were better among older adults without MCI compared to those with MCI. Fujiwara et al (2013) also revealed that higher grip strength was observed among subjects with normal cognition as compared to subjects with MCI.…”

“…A few studies that have been discussed above involved the determination of MCI based on MMSE (Jang & Kim 2015;Lee et al 2016) and MoCa (Fujiwara et al 2013) assessments only. However, none of the above-mentioned studies defined the MCI based on Peterson criteria (2014).…”

“…Besides, only one research studied the association between physical fitness and successful ageing (Lin et al 2016), and it is largely comparable with the present study. In addition, only a few studies applied the complete SFT (Han & Kang 2015;Lee et al 2016;Lin et al 2016), and most of the studies using handgrip strength as one of the potential markers of cognitive function deterioration. Senior Fitness Tests (SFT) was chosen because it is convenient to carry out in community setting (Lin et al 2016) and handgrip strength is often used to represent the muscular strength of whole body (Jang & Kim 2015).…”

Design and Validation of Rule-Based Expert System by Using Kinect V2 for Real-Time Athlete Support

“…These situations in Tables 9 and 10 are an indication that in addition to making the movements more stable, the use of the system makes training more accurate, so physical and cognitive abilities related to the movements are increased as stated in [93][94][95].…”