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A 24-week multi-component exercise program improves cognition and body composition in older adults with mild
Danming Xu1, Xiaochu Wu2, Junming Dai1
1Strength and Conditioning Center, Chengdu Sport University, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
Background:
This study investigated whether a 24-week, community-based multicomponent exercise intervention (MCEI) can improve body composition and cognitive function in older adults with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
Methods:
In this single-center, parallel-group randomized controlled trial (RCT), 64 community-dwelling adults aged 65-75 years with MCI characterized by Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) ≥ 24, Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) ≤ 26, Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) = 0.5, low skeletal muscle mass were randomly allocated (1:1) to a MCEI (aerobic, resistance and balance training, 3 × 60 min/week) or to a usual-activity control (UAC) group receiving weekly health education. Primary outcomes were skeletal muscle mass (SMM), fat-mass index (FMI), MMSE and MoCA; secondary outcomes included skeletal muscle index (SMI), basal metabolic rate (BMR), Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) and Animal Fluency Test (AFT). Assessments were conducted at baseline and within 1 week post-intervention by trained, blinded assessors. Intervention effects were examined with a 2 (group) × 2 (time) repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA), reporting partial eta-squared (η2) as the effect-size estimate.
Results:
A significant Group × Time interaction was observed for SMM (p < 0.001, η2 = 0.195) and FMI (p = 0.003, η2 = 0.153), indicating differential changes between groups; with significant improvements observed only in the MCEI group. SMI showed no significant interaction effect (p = 0.270, η2 = 0.021), whereas no significant interactions were found for MMSE, MoCA, or AFT (p ≥ 0.18, η2 ≤ 0.03).
Conclusion:
A 24-week community-based multicomponent exercise program safely increased skeletal muscle mass and reduced fat mass in older adults with MCI, but did not produce measurable improvements on screening-level cognitive measures. Future studies with longer duration, larger samples, and inclusion of cognitive challenges are warranted to clarify exercise-cognition interactions and establish dose-response relationships for both body composition and domain-specific cognition.
Clinical Trial Registration:
Identifier ChiCTR2000035012.
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