The effects of aerobic exercise with lavender essence use on cognitive state and serum brain-derived neurotrophic factor levels in elderly with mild cognitive impairment

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of 12-week aerobic exercise and lavender essence on cognitive states and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) levels of elderly with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).
In this clinical study, 40 elderly whose scores for mini–mental state examination (MMSE) ranged 21 to 25 were purposively selected by simple sampling. They were randomly divided into 4 equal groups: aerobic exercise, lavender extract, aerobic-lavender. and placebo. They underwent their respective treatments for 12 weeks. The aerobic exercise consisted of 8-minute running session with intensity of 75%-85% HRR Max for the first session. One minute was added to the running span after each 2 sessions. Accordingly, the running span reached 26 minutes at the end of the 12-week exercise period. To conduct treatment with lavender, 2 drops of lavender essence were administered twice a day. Before and after the treatments, cognitive state was measured and blood samples collected to measure BDNF.
BDNF levels of the exercise and exercise lavender groups increased significantly compared to those of the other 2 groups (P Combination of 12-week aerobic exercise and lavender may decelerate or probably halt the progressive process of the impairment via improving the cognitive state in elderly with MCI.