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 "Physical activity reduced the risk of dependence in both basic
activities of daily living (for example, dressing and getting across
a room) as well as instrumental activities of daily living (for
example, managing money or grocery shopping), which are considered
to be more cognitively demanding,” said lead author Dr. Pamela M.
Rist from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard T.H. Chan School
of Public Health in Boston.
“These instrumental activities of daily living can be important
determinants of quality of life among stroke patients, so it is
important to find factors which reduce the risk of dependence in
these activities as well as in basic activities of daily living,”
she told Reuters Health by email.
Rist's team studied 18,117 individuals participating in the national
Health and Retirement Study in an effort to find out whether
physical activity and body mass index (BMI), a common measure of
overweight and obesity, could predict disability.
During 12 years of follow-up, the amount of physical activity people
did was not associated with the risk of stroke, but it was
associated with the likelihood of being independent three years
after a stroke.
Those who were physically inactive at baseline were significantly
less likely to be independent at that point, compared with those who
were physically active at baseline.
Somewhat surprisingly, this difference between inactive and active
stroke survivors was also evident three years before their strokes,
researchers report in the journal Neurology.
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Obesity, in contrast, was associated with an increased risk of
stroke, but it was not associated with loss of independence during
the follow-up period, regardless of whether an individual suffered a
stroke.
“Individuals can reduce their risk of dependence before and after
stroke events by being physically active, which in our study was
defined as participating in vigorous physical activity at least
three times per week,” Rist said.
The researchers recommend further study to clarify whether increases
in physical activity might also improve outcomes after a stroke.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2omYFFf Neurology, online April 5, 2017.
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