Yang Lixia, Gallant Sara N, Wilkins Leanne Karyn, Dyson Ben
Department of Psychology, Ryerson University, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
Front Aging Neurosci. 2020 Nov 19;12:576744. doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2020.576744. eCollection 2020.
Prior work has demonstrated that executive function training or physical exercise can improve older adults' cognition. The current study takes an exploratory approach to compare the feasibility and efficacy of online executive function training and low-intensity aerobic exercise for improving cognitive and psychosocial functioning in healthy older adults.
Following a standard pretest-training-posttest protocol, 40 older adults (aged 65 and above) were randomly assigned to an executive function or a physical training group. A battery of cognitive and psychosocial outcome measures were administered before and after training. During the 10 weeks of self-guided training at home (25-30 min/day, 4 days/week), the executive function training group practiced a set of adaptive online executive function tasks designed by Lumos Labs, whereas the physical training group completed an adaptive Digital Video Disc (DVD)-based low-intensity aerobic exercise program.
Training transfer effects were limited. Relative to low-intensity aerobic exercise, executive function training yielded cognitive improvement on the 64-card Wisconsin Card Sorting Task (WCST-64), a general executive function measure. Depression and stress levels dropped following both training programs, but this could be driven by decreased stress or excitement in performing the tasks over time.
The results revealed limited cognitive benefits of the online executive function training program, specifically to a near transfer test of general executive control. Importantly, the current study supports the feasibility of home-based self-guided executive function and low-intensity physical training with healthy older adults.
先前的研究表明，执行功能训练或体育锻炼可以改善老年人的认知能力。本研究采用探索性方法，比较在线执行功能训练和低强度有氧运动对改善健康老年人认知和心理社会功能的可行性和有效性。
按照标准的前测-训练-后测方案，40名65岁及以上的老年人被随机分配到执行功能训练组或体育训练组。在训练前后进行了一系列认知和心理社会结果测量。在为期10周的在家自我指导训练期间（每天25-30分钟，每周4天），执行功能训练组练习了一组由Lumos Labs设计的适应性在线执行功能任务，而体育训练组完成了基于数字视频光盘（DVD）的适应性低强度有氧运动计划。
训练迁移效果有限。相对于低强度有氧运动，执行功能训练在64卡片威斯康星卡片分类任务（WCST-64）上产生了认知改善，这是一项一般执行功能测量。两个训练项目后抑郁和压力水平均有所下降，但这可能是由于随着时间的推移执行任务时压力或兴奋感降低所致。
结果显示在线执行功能训练计划的认知益处有限，特别是对于一般执行控制的近迁移测试。重要的是，本研究支持了健康老年人在家进行自我指导的执行功能和低强度体育训练的可行性。
