Neurology 2026

Aging, may affect brain in several aspects including structure and function, which can be considered as an indicator for the risk of neurological impairments including Alzheimer’s disease. It has been suggested that the blood flow to the brain will decrease by the age, the structure of brain may change and cognition impairment may occur as a result. Several studies have focused on the effect of lifestyle interventions as physical activity on the Alzheimer’s disease progression and management. It was assumed that aerobic exercise even as a leisure activity may improve patient’s condition via improving brain network plasticity and neural empowerment. On the other hand, other investigations have suggested that strength training may be effective due to the increase in physical fitness parameters including muscle strength and increase in BDNF serum level. In this study, we aimed to assess the effect of aerobic and strength training on a 73 years old patient diagnosed with Alzheimer’s quality of life and independency. After medical assessment, the physical activity program was prescribed under physiotherapist and exercise physiologist supervision. The physical activity intervention lasted for 8 weeks, 3 days per week and 30-45 minutes for each session. Each session followed 5 minutes warm up, combined aerobic and strength training for 30 minutes and 10 minutes of cooling down. The physical activity protocol consisted of treadmill walk with progression in slope and Dumble press according to 1RM. The results showed improvement on muscular strength and independency which may indicate better quality of life.

Kimia Moiniafshari, has been graduated from BSc in nutrition science and PhD of exercise physiology. Since 2015, she became interested in neuroscience and its relation with nutrition, physical activity and lifestyle. Since 2018, she started to investigate more about neuroscience, neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorders and also their underlying mechanisms from cells to organ. Her main interest of research, is to finding out more about the lifestyle and environmental factors effect on quality of life in public health with more emphasize on neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disorder in order to plan and recruit more effective health intervention to improve public health status.