An Acute Bout of Dynamic Sitting Exercises Improves Stroop Performance and Quality of Sleep in Older Adults with Cognitive Impairment

The study was aimed at identifying the acute effects of dynamic sitting exercises (DSE) on Stroop performance and quality of sleep in elderly persons with cognitive impairment.

Sixty-eight elderly males with cognitive impairment were attended in research voluntarily, following screening tests, 62 participants were assigned randomly assigned to either DSE or control groups. At the end, 5 participants discontinued from the study. The experimental group participated in eight sessions of DSE in 2 weeks (four sessions a week). The exercise protocol consisted of stepping patterns on a chair; stretching and finger movements. The Stroop test was used to evaluate the cognitive performance of participants before and after exercise intervention. Actiwatch 7 was used to measure sleep quality. Paired t-test and independent t-test were used to analyze the data.

It was suggested that Stroop performance was positively affected by DSE (P ≤ 0.05); meanwhile, no statistically significant change was found in the control group (P ≥ 0.05). All parameters of sleep patterns, including sleep efficiency, wake after sleep onset, and movement and fragmentation index, were improved significantly (P ≤ 0.05).

Although the aging process besides the environmental factors, especially lifestyle could result in cognitive impairment, DSE would improve the cognitive performance in Stroop performance test.