- November 30, 2022

 

Promoting physical activity in midlife adults to reduce risk for Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias

More than 6 million U.S. adults live with diagnoses of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias. While there is no cure for these neurodegenerative diseases, engaging in regular physical activity during midlife is associated with a lower risk for these conditions later in life.  Unfortunately, nearly half of midlife adults do not meet national physical activity guidelines of 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity.

Edson faculty Drs. Rodney Joseph, Assistant Professor in the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and Molly Maxfield, Associate Professor and Interim Associate Director in the Center for Innovation in Health and Resilient Aging will lead a new 5-year grant funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging to explore if physical activity goal setting increases physical activity and promotes adherence to national physical activity guidelines among midlife adults with obesity. 

Drs. Joseph and Maxfield will be joined by co-investigators Drs. Fang Yu and Keenan Pituch also from the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation to support the research. The study will compare various types of goal setting strategies for improving physical activity outcomes among participants. Since goal setting is a widely accepted practice in intervention research, the results of this study could have broad-scale potential for informing how goal setting is used to promote physical activity among midlife adults with the additional benefit of reducing dementia risk.

Congratulations Drs. Joseph, Maxfield and their team!