The role of aerobic training on sleep quality and some physiological parameters related to sleep in the elderly with Alzheimer's disease

The world is getting old. Alzheimer's disease is a progressive disease, which in case of no intervention, this ratio reaches 4 more advanced stages in people over 85 years old. Some methods have shown that they can be effective in preventing and slowing down the course of the disease. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of aerobic exercise program on the quality and some physiological parameters related to sleep in the elderly with Alzheimer's disease. 22 elderly people with Alzheimer's disease were randomly divided into two groups of 11 people: aerobic exercise and control. The subjects in the aerobic training group practiced three sessions every week for twelve weeks and each session lasted for 45 minutes. The sleep quality of the subjects was evaluated by the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Questionnaire (PSQI). Physiological variables related to sleep (TG, TC, LDL, HDL) were also measured by blood sampling before and after twelve weeks of aerobic exercise The results showed that the sleep quality of the subjects improved by 31% in the Pied Heroi group, which was statistically significant. In addition, there was a significant improvement in the changes of TG (p=0.034), TC (p=0.017), LDL (p=0.006), and HDL (p=0.016) in the aerobic training group. The results of the independent t test also showed that there was a significant difference in sleep quality between the aerobic training and control groups. However, no relationship was observed between changes in sleep quality and changes in physiological variables related to sleep. It can be concluded that twelve weeks of aerobic exercise improves sleep quality along with some physiological parameters related to sleep in the elderly with Alzheimer's disease and will be useful as a way to treat sleep problems in the elderly.