ORIGINAL PAPER
Physical activity, home and leisure activities, and neuropsychological performance
in middle-aged and older adults living in the community
1
Institute of Psychology, The Maria Grzegorzewska University, Warsaw, Poland
2
Centre for Brain Research, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland
These authors had equal contribution to this work
Submission date: 2025-01-17
Final revision date: 2025-03-28
Acceptance date: 2025-05-13
Online publication date: 2025-07-21
Corresponding author
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
Background:
There is a large body of evidence linking physical activity (PA) with improved cognition in later life. The present study aimed to investigate the associations between current neuropsychological functioning and PA, as well as home and leisure activi-ties in middle-aged and older people. Visuospatial functions were of particular interest.
Participants and procedure:
Fifty men and 54 women aged 50-81 years participated in the study. The assessment included standardised or experimental neuropsychological tasks and PA monitoring with a pedometer. In addition, home and leisure activities were examined. These included daily activities related to free time – physical, social, cultural, intellectual and spiritual. The cognitive tasks assessed perceptual processing speed, visuospatial abilities, construction, attention, working memory and executive function. To obtain more general measures of cognitive function, two cognitive factors were extracted using principal components analysis. Correlation analysis and a general linear model examined whether PA, as measured by walking, engaging in home and leisure activities, and age were cross-sectionally associated with neuropsychological performance.
Results:
In the study group, engaging in a variety of domestic and leisure activities was linked to better performance in the Visuospa-tial/Executive Function and Working Memory/Executive Function factors. Older age was associated with lower Visuospa-tial/Executive Function factor scores. Walking volume was not associated with the cognitive factors.
Conclusions:
The results of this study support the hypothesis that having a rich cognitive and physical lifestyle can be beneficial to cog-nitive function in middle and older adulthood. Further research is needed to better understand the links between neuropsy-chological performance, physical activity and home and leisure activities in these age groups.
There is a large body of evidence linking physical activity (PA) with improved cognition in later life. The present study aimed to investigate the associations between current neuropsychological functioning and PA, as well as home and leisure activi-ties in middle-aged and older people. Visuospatial functions were of particular interest.
Participants and procedure:
Fifty men and 54 women aged 50-81 years participated in the study. The assessment included standardised or experimental neuropsychological tasks and PA monitoring with a pedometer. In addition, home and leisure activities were examined. These included daily activities related to free time – physical, social, cultural, intellectual and spiritual. The cognitive tasks assessed perceptual processing speed, visuospatial abilities, construction, attention, working memory and executive function. To obtain more general measures of cognitive function, two cognitive factors were extracted using principal components analysis. Correlation analysis and a general linear model examined whether PA, as measured by walking, engaging in home and leisure activities, and age were cross-sectionally associated with neuropsychological performance.
Results:
In the study group, engaging in a variety of domestic and leisure activities was linked to better performance in the Visuospa-tial/Executive Function and Working Memory/Executive Function factors. Older age was associated with lower Visuospa-tial/Executive Function factor scores. Walking volume was not associated with the cognitive factors.
Conclusions:
The results of this study support the hypothesis that having a rich cognitive and physical lifestyle can be beneficial to cog-nitive function in middle and older adulthood. Further research is needed to better understand the links between neuropsy-chological performance, physical activity and home and leisure activities in these age groups.
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