Author:

Keywords:

Exercise, Motor functions, Cognitive functions, Cognitive-motor training, Brain, Science & Technology, Life Sciences & Biomedicine, Geriatrics & Gerontology, BASAL GANGLIA FUNCTION, QUALITY-OF-LIFE, PHYSICAL-ACTIVITY, EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONS, WHITE-MATTER, TRAINING IMPROVES, RESISTANCE EXERCISE, INHIBITORY CONTROL, AEROBIC EXERCISE, GAIT PERFORMANCE, 1106 Human Movement and Sports Sciences, 1117 Public Health and Health Services, Gerontology, 3202 Clinical sciences, 4206 Public health, 4207 Sports science and exercise

Abstract:

The decline in cognitive and motor functions with age affects the performance of the aging healthy population in many daily life activities. Physical activity appears to mitigate this decline or even improve motor and cognitive abilities in older adults. The current systematic review will focus mainly on behavioral studies that look into the dual effects of different types of physical training (e.g., balance training, aerobic training, strength training, group sports, etc.) on cognitive and motor tasks in older adults with no known cognitive or motor disabilities or disease. Our search retrieved a total of 1095 likely relevant articles, of which 41 were considered for full-text reading and 19 were included in the review after the full-text reading. Overall, observations from the 19 included studies conclude that improvements on both motor and cognitive functions were found, mainly in interventions that adopt physical-cognitive training or combined exercise training. While this finding advocates the use of multimodal exercise training paradigms or interventions to improve cognitive-motor abilities in older adults, the sizeable inconsistency among training protocols and endpoint measures complicates the generalization of this finding.