“The effect of different levels of physical activity on the retrospective and prospective memory performance of the elderly”

Abstract

Introduction: interaction between the physical and cognitive factors of the elderly can have a significant impact on their quality of life and affect on design of health-based mechanisms for the elderly. In this regard, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of different levels of physical activity on the retrospective and prospective memory performance in elderly. Method: The present research is a causal-comparative study. The sample consisted of 178 elderly. All participants were asked to complete the physical activity level Questionnaire of Champs and elders was placed in three groups with low physical activity (n=56), moderate (n=63) and high (n=59). Retrospective and prospective memory was evaluated through Crawford Questionnaire. Results: The findings showed that there was a significant difference between the performance of prospective memory in the elderly group with a high and moderate activity level with prospective memory of the elderly group with a low level of activity (P = 0.001). Also, the results of variance analysis indicated that there is a significant difference between retrospective memory performance in elderly group with physical activity levels (P = 0.004). Conclusion: According to the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that in elderly, different levels of physical activity significantly effect on the memory performance. So, one can expect that the elderly with regular physical activity will prevent the occurrence of many memory problems over time. This study suggests that Elderly people put up high-level physical exercises in their daily routine to prevent cognitive decline in retrospective and prospective memory.