Exercise May Slow Cognitive Decline in Parkinson Disease

A study published in Neurology shows that exercise may help to slow cognitive decline for people with Parkinson disease (PD). Research has suggested that people with PD who have the gene variant apolipoprotein E e4 (APOE e4), may also experience faster cognitive decline earlier in the disease than people without the variant. 

For this study, tThe study examined whether exercise could play a role in slowing cognitive decline for people with APOE e4. The research involved 173 people with early PD who were on average 63 years of age and were 59 years of age when they developed the disease. 

In this study, 173 participants with PD who had a mean age of 63 and were mean age 59 at diagnosis were assessed for APOE e4, which found in 27% of participants had the APOE e4 gene variant. Participants reported their physical activity with a questionnaire on how much activity they had in the previous week through leisure activities such as walking or biking, household activities such as dusting or yard work, or work activities for pay or as a volunteer.
 
Participants had cognitive assessments at baseline and 1 year and 2 years later. Scores at the beginning of the study averaged 26 points. For people with the APOE e4 gene variant, test scores declined by an average of 1.33 points by the end of the study compared to those without the variant. Researchers also found that greater physical activity at the start of the study lessened APOE e4-related cognitive decline 2 years later by an average of 0.007 points.
 
“Additional research is needed to confirm our findings, but these results would support the use of interventions that target physical activity as a way to delay cognitive decline in people with early Parkinson’s who have the APOE e4 gene variant,” said Jin-Sun Jun, MD, of Hallym University, Seoul, Korea. “Problems with thinking skills and memory can have a negative impact on people’s quality of life and ability to function, so it’s exciting that increasing physical activity could have the potential to delay or prevent cognitive decline.”