| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1902978 | Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics | 2012 | 4 Pages |
Elderly individuals with AD are more susceptible to falls, which might be associated with decrements in their executive functions and balance, among other things. We aimed to analyze the effects of a program of dual task physical activity on falls, executive functions and balance of elderly individuals with AD. We studied 21 elderly with probable AD, allocated to two groups: the training group (TG), with 10 elderly who participated in a program of dual task physical activity; and the control group (CG), with 11 elderly who were not engaged in regular practice of physical activity. The Clock Drawing Test (CDT) and the Frontal Assessment Battery (FAB) were used in the assessment of the executive functions, while the Berg Balance Scale (BBS) and the Timed Up-and-Go (TUG)-test evaluated balance. The number of falls was obtained by means of a questionnaire. We observed a better performance of the TG as regards balance and executive functions. Moreover, the lower the number of steps in the TUG scale, the higher the scores in the CDT, and in the FAB. The practice of regular physical activity with dual task seems to have contributed to the maintenance and improvement of the motor and cognitive functions of the elderly with AD.
► The present study presents a numerical convection and dynamo model for the full sphere using a finite element method in the absence of the tangent cylinder without imposing any boundary conditions at the centre. ► It is found that sustaining the full sphere dynamo without the effect of tangent cylinder is more difficult than that in spherical shells. ► We show that the morphology of the magnetic field generated by the full sphere dynamo is largely dominated by non-dipolar components, suggesting the ancient geomagnetic field prior to the onset of inner-core crystallization would be quite different from the current field.
