Physical exercise improves listening comprehension in older people

Physical exercise is good for your health but, for older people, it is also beneficial for oral comprehension! This is what a new study shows, the results of which were published in the journal Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition.

Three physical exercise sessions per week

In this study, participants spoke either only English (monolingual) or two languages ​​(bilingual). All were elderly, with mild cognitive impairment. For a little over six months, they followed a physical exercise program. They began with a four-week familiarization period, where exercise intensity and duration were lower. Then, the pace remained the same throughout the study: three sessions per week, lasting from 40 minutes to one hour, including warm-up and cool-down. In detail, it involved a circuit training session (3 sets of six exercises of 45 seconds, with 30 or 90 seconds of rest each time) and two cardio sessions per week. During these, participants could either walk uphill or jog.

Monolinguals, 7% faster at detecting words

Before and after the study, participants took tests to assess their ability to recognize certain words in spoken sentences. For bilingual participants, the results were the same. On the other hand, monolinguals were 7% faster at detecting key words after six months of regular physical activity.

“We found different results in the bilingual group and the monolingual group, underlines Dr Eunice Fernandes, corresponding author of the study, in a communiqué. This is most likely due to the different cognitive demands involved in language processing when adding a second language”.

In both groups, the results were the same in terms of health. The researchers observed an improvement in the physical fitness of the participants thanks to the three weekly sessions.

“This is the first study (…) which establishes a cause and effect link between improved physical fitness and language processing, particularly in older people, says Dr Katrien Segaert, one of the authors of the study. Language processing is an important and interesting area of ​​study: the ability to communicate is an essential function of everyone’s daily life. Results from the monolingual group show that improved fitness is linked to better cognition, highlighting the importance of regular exercise for healthy aging”.

Health Insurance recommends that people over 65 years old practice, each day, either 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity (without shortness of breath) or 15 minutes of high-intensity physical activity (which causes shortness of breath).