Dr. Ralph Nixon, chair of the Alzheimer’s Association Medical and Scientific Advisory Council, states that people in their 60s and 70s are at greatest risk for Alzheimer’s disease. At the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) 2014 Dr. Miia Kivipelto of the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, presented results of a randomized trial which suggest that lifestyle intervention can benefit people in this age group.
The main purpose of this two-year trial, called the Finnish Geriatric Intervention Study to Prevent Cognitive Impairment and Disability (FINGER), was to reduce cognitive impairment in an at-risk population using a multidomain intervention which included social activities, physical activity, nutritional advice, cognitive training, and monitoring and management of metabolic and vascular risk factors. These are the types of lifestyle factors that I speak about in my talks, using my acronym “Brain SENSE” to remind people to Socialize, Exercise, eat Nutritionally, and stimulate their brain with novel and complex ideas (Education). My acronym also touts the importance of Sleep and Spirituality for brain health, but this study did not address those factors.
The 1260 people in this study, aged 60 to 77 years, were randomly assigned to either receive the intensive intervention or regular health advice. The intervention group received both group and individual sessions on nutrition, supervised exercise including both aerobic and muscle training, computer-based cognitive training, and monitoring of vascular risk factors by a nurse and a physician at three month intervals. The control group was given health advice over 13 visits.
After two years, the researchers reported a highly statistically significant improvement on cognitive performance for those in the intervention group, which assessed memory, executive function, and processing speed using the Neuropsychological test Battery (mNTB). This benefit was more pronounced among the older participants in the group, and those with worse cognitive function at baseline. There were no gender differences in the effects of the training.
Positive features of this multidomain lifestyle approach to intervention include ease of adherence, in that more than 70% of participants were able to follow and stay with it, and its cost effectiveness, suggesting it could be implemented fairly easily in numerous settings.
The author stated that this study reports the first result from a large, long-term multidomain study showing that it is possible to reduce the risk of cognitive impairment in an at-risk population.