The FIT intervention, which requires 6 minutes more nurses' aide time than does PV, increases both physical activity and mobility endurance in extremely frail and deconditioned nursing home residents. The increased cost of this intervention must be evaluated both in terms of clinical outcomes and by the reality that the target group for this intervention is very frail and will continue to require nursing home care, even assuming an excellent response to the intervention.

At 16 senior centers, we studied the effectiveness of exercise and cognitive-behavioral programs, compared with a discussion control program, in reducing falls and injuries among 230 older adults. After 1 year of the programs, we observed no significant difference in time to first fall. Even though a relatively high percentage (38.6%) suffered at least one fall, only 7.8% of these community-residing elderly required medical attention. Secondary outcome measures such as strength, balance, fear of falling, and perceived health did not significantly change.

This study supports our previous findings of marked sleep disruption in impaired nursing home residents. In addition, despite documented improvements in physical function with activity, we did not find improvements in sleep in the intervention versus control groups. These results suggest that increasing daytime physical activity alone is not adequate to improve sleep in impaired NH residents. Future efforts to improve sleep in this population should take into account the multifactorial nature of sleep disruption, including individual health problems that effect sleep and the disruptive nature of the nighttime NH environment.

Twelve weeks of daily walking at a self-selected walking pace by ambulatory nursing home residents produced significant improvements in walk endurance capacity. No other significant changes were noted in physical activity level, mobility, or quality of life in either group after the intervention. Also, there were no side effects, such as increases in falls or cardiovascular complications, due to the walking intervention. Lengthening the walking program to 22 weeks produced no further significant changes in any outcome measures.

The purpose of this study was to 1) compare two commonly practiced stretching techniques to determine which is most effective for improving hip range of motion, and 2) evaluate the effect of these techniques on gait economy. Seven asymptomatic males, 18-22 years of age, served as subjects. Goniometric measurements of hip range of motion (ROM) and gait economy, as measured by submaximal oxygen consumption of walking and running on a treadmill, were taken before and after each of the two stretching procedures, (a) static stretching, and (b) soft tissue mobilization with proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (STMIPNF). Static stretching procedures resulted in significant improvements in ROM for hip extension (p < 0.01) and hip flexion (p < 0.01). The STMIPNF also resulted in significant improvements in hip extension ROM (p < 0.01) and hip flexion ROM (p < 0.05). There was a significant improvement in gait economy at 40% \i02max (p c 0.05), at 60% ~0 m a x (p c 0.05), and at 80% ~Onmax (p < 0.01) following the static stretching procedure. The STMI PNF procedure improved gait economy only at one workload, 60% of VO~rnax (p < 0.05). These results suggest that a single bout of static stretching or STMIPNF was effective for improving hip ROM but static stretching was more effective for improving gait economy in young, asymptomatic males.

No abstract

Endurance training is associated with higher binding of 3H-spiperone to striatal D2 dopamine receptors of rats sacrificed 48 h following the last exercise bout (Gilliam et al. 1984). In the present study we investigated the effects of endurance training in presenescent older rats on the relationship between steady-state levels of DA and its metabolites in striatum versus the affinity and density of striatal D2 DA receptors. Citrate synthase activity of the gastrocnemius-plantaris muscle was 29.06 +/- 2.27 mumole/g wet wt in 21-month-old trained rats versus 22.88 +/- 1.13 mumole/g wet wt in 21-month-old untrained animals. DOPAC levels and DOPAC/DA ratios were greater in the old controls. Endurance training was associated with lower DOPAC levels in the 21-month-old animals. Thus, endurance training may postpone selectively changes in DA metabolism over a portion of the lifespan. As expected, the number of D2 DA binding sites was reduced with age (6 months Bmax:429 +/- 21 fmoles/mg protein; 21 months:355 +/- 20) with no change in affinity. The Bmax of old runners was significantly higher (457 +/- 38 fmoles/mg protein) than that of old controls. Thus, endurance training appears to exert a protective effect on D2 dopamine receptors during the lifespan. Taken together, the present results suggest that there may be a possible reciprocal relationship between changes in DA metabolites and DA binding as a function of exercise in presenescent older rats, and that endurance training may decelerate the effects of age both on nigrostriatal dopamine neurons and on striatal D2 dopamine receptors during a portion of the lifespan.

Objective: The Theta-Alpha ratio (TAR) is known to differ based upon age and cognitive ability, with pathological electroencephalography (EEG) patterns routinely found within neurodegenerative disorders of older adults. We hypothesized that cognitive ability would predict EEG metrics differently within healthy young and old adults, and that healthy old adults not showing age-expected EEG activity may be more likely to demonstrate cognitive deficits relative to old adults showing these expected changes.Methods: In 216 EEG blocks collected in 16 young and 20 old adults during rest (eyes open, eyes closed) and cognitive tasks (short-term memory [STM]; matrix reasoning [RM; Raven's matrices]), models assessed the contributing roles of cognitive ability, age, and task in predicting the TAR. A general linear mixed-effects regression model was used to model this relationship, including interaction effects to test whether increased cognitive ability predicted TAR differently for young and old adults at rest and during cognitive tasks.Results: The relationship between cognitive ability and the TAR across all blocks showed age-dependency, and cognitive performance at the CZ midline location predicted the TAR measure when accounting for the effect of age (p < 0.05, chi-square test of nested models). Age significantly interacted with STM performance in predicting the TAR (p < 0.05); increases in STM were associated with increased TAR in young adults, but not in old adults. RM showed similar interaction effects with aging and TAR (p < 0.10).Conclusion: EEG correlates of cognitive ability are age-dependent. Adults who did not show age-related EEG changes were more likely to exhibit cognitive deficits than those who showed age-related changes. This suggests that healthy aging should produce moderate changes in Alpha and TAR measures, and the absence of such changes signals impaired cognitive functioning.