OBJECTIVE: The objective of this review is to analyze through a the scientific evidence about the effects of physical activity in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) as a preventive and non-pharmacological treatment. DESIGN: Systematic review. DATA SOURCES: We have identified articles from PubMed, ScienceDirect, Medline and Scopus databases, with the keywords Alzheimer, exercise, neuroimaging, MRI, PET and physical activity. SELECTED ARTICLES: We included those studies that evaluated the effects of physical activity on Alzheimer's disease and those which also included magnetic resonance imaging or positron emission tomography with Pittsburg Compound B marker (PiB) analyzing brain atrophy or increase of the beta-amyloid deposit respectively. We excluded studies including other types of dementia, different of AD. We also excluded articles which not included neuroimaging tests, single cases or non-English language articles. DATA EXTRACTION: The PRISMA quality scale was used for the critical lecture of the studies. The researchers independently assessed the articles and the discrepancies were resolved by consensus. RESULTS: We identified 75 articles, of which 23 were finally included in the review. CONCLUSIONS: Most of the studies included do not allow us to know the impact of physical exercise on cognition and the cerebral structural-functional changes in patients at risk of developing AD or in patients who already have the disease. Without being able to rule out a possible beneficial effect, more studies are needed with a better design and methodological rigor that allows a better known about this association.

Full text (sometimes free) may be available at these link(s):      help

• PubMed Central
• DOI
• PubMed
• PDF locator
• publisher