The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of physical activity program on cognition and ADL of demented elderly. The study design was repeated measurement study. Twenty six dementia patients residing in welfare hospital participated in 4-wee...
The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of physical activity program on cognition and ADL of demented elderly. The study design was repeated measurement study. Twenty six dementia patients residing in welfare hospital participated in 4-week study period including 3-week intervention protocol. The protocol of rhythmical body movement and active exercise was carried out along with Korean folk music and social interaction with research assistants. Dependent variables were cognition which was evaluated by revised Hasegawa dementia scaled and ADL which was measured by Katz`s ADL Index. Overall cognition score was not significantly changed after intervention. On the contrary for the subjects of 7.5-year-old and higher age, significant increase after first week(p=.033) and third week(p=.036) were identified. For ADL, significant improvement were found after first week(p=.002) and third week(p=.025). Different results of ADL score were identified by cognition. That is, subjects of RHDS 9 or less showed significant improvement on ADL after intervention while subjects of RHDS 10 or more didn`t. By the results of this study, physical activity program is effective on ADL of demented elderly. More studies are needed considering duration of intervention , age of subjects, cognition level of subjects to confirm the effect of physical activity on cognition and ADL of dementia patients.