Improvement in the face/name association performance after three months of physical training in elderly women

Several lines of evidence suggest that physical exercise not only influences the development of muscles, cardiovascular and respiratory systems, but also exerts a significant influence on the central nervous system. We examined the influence of strength and endurance training on cognitive performance in 33 healthy elderly volunteers (women, mean age 63.5 +/-4.5 yr) over a 3-month period of supervised training program. A control group consisted of 8 age-matched (mean age 66.3 +/-4.6) healthy volunteers who did not participate in any exercise training program. To evaluate the cognitive performance in our subjects we used two tests: face/name association test and Stroop test. The tests were applied shortly before and immediately after the training program. In the experimental group, a significant improvement in the association test performance, on average, from 71.6 +/-7.3% to 79.7 +/-7.2% (P<0.0001) was observed over the 3-month training period. There were no changes in the Stroop test results over the same time. Likewise, there were no changes in the control groups. Our data demonstrate that the training regime that is strictly followed over a relatively short period of time may improve the performance in associative memory tasks in elderly subjects. The study supports the notion that physical exercise influences cognitive performance and extend this notion to be valid for healthy elderly subjects.