Highlights
- •Cognitive function was examined in persons with traumatic brain injury before and after exercise training.
- •Supervised aerobic exercise training was performed for 12 weeks on a treadmill.
- •Improved cognitive function was observed after exercise training.
- •Improvements in cognition were related to changes in physical performance measures.
Abstract
Objective
To examine cognitive function in individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI) prior
to and after participation in an aerobic exercise training program.
Design
Pre-post intervention study.
Setting
Medical research center.
Participants
Volunteer sample of individuals (N=7) (age, 33.3±7.9y) with chronic nonpenetrating
TBI (injury severity: 3=mild, 4=moderate; time since most current injury: 4.0±5.5y)
who were ambulatory.
Intervention
Twelve weeks of supervised vigorous aerobic exercise training performed 3 times a
week for 30 minutes on a treadmill.
Main Outcome Measures
Cognitive function was assessed using the Trail Making Test Part A (TMT-A), Trail
Making Test Part B (TMT-B), and Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological
Status (RBANS). Sleep quality and depression were measured with the Pittsburgh Sleep
Quality Index (PSQI) and Beck Depression Inventory, version 2 (BDI-II). Indices of
cardiorespiratory fitness were used to examine the relation between improvements in
cognitive function and cardiorespiratory fitness.
Results
After training, improvements in cognitive function were observed with greater scores
on the TMT-A (10.3±6.8; P=.007), TMT-B (9.6±7.0; P=.011), and RBANS total scale (13.3±9.3; P=.009). No changes were observed in measures of the PSQI and BDI-II. The magnitude
of cognitive improvements was also strongly related to the gains in cardiorespiratory
fitness.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that vigorous aerobic exercise training may improve specific
aspects of cognitive function in individuals with TBI and cardiorespiratory fitness
gains may be a determinant of these improvements.
Keywords
List of abbreviations:
AT (anaerobic threshold), CPET (cardiopulmonary exercise test), RBANS (Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status), TBI (traumatic brain injury), TMT-A (Trail Making Test Part A), TMT-B (Trail Making Test Part B), V˙o2 (oxygen consumption per unit time), WR (work rate)To read this article in full you will need to make a payment
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: November 26, 2014
Footnotes
Supported by the Center for Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine (grant no. G192HI-H) and the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center (rehabilitation medicine department intramural funds).
Disclosures: none.
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
