White matter withering = woeful walking

Problems getting around in old age? Blame your brain

New research shows how well people get around and keep their balance
in old age is linked to the severity of changes happening in their
brains. The study is published in the March 18, 2008, issue of
Neurology. White matter changes, also called leukoaraiosis, are
frequently seen in older people and differ in severity.

The three-year study called LADIS (Leukoaraiosis and Disability),
coordinated by the Department of Neurological and Psychiatric Sciences
of the University of Florence, involved 639 men and women between the
ages of 65 and 84 who underwent brain scans and walking and balance
tests. Of the group, 284 had mild age-related white matter changes,
197 moderate changes, and 158 severe changes.

The study found people with severe white matter changes were twice as
likely to score poorly on the walking and balance tests as those
people with mild white matter changes. The study also found people
with severe changes were twice as likely as the mild group to have a
history of falls. The moderate group was one-and-a-half times as
likely as the mild group to have a history of falls.

“Walking difficulties and falls are major symptoms of people with
white matter changes and a significant cause of illness and death in
the elderly,” said study author Hansjoerg Baezner, MD, PhD, with the
University of Heidelberg in Mannheim, Germany. “Exercise may have the
potential to reduce the risk of these problems since exercise is
associated with improved walking and balance. We’ll be testing whether
exercise has such a protective effect in our long-term study of this
group.”

“Mobility is one of the key determinants of independent aging,” said
Baezner. “Limitations in mobility often lead to hospitalization and
nursing home placement. This will become a major problem for our
social and economic systems in the upcoming decades.”

In addition, Baezner says monitoring white matter changes may be
useful in the early detection of walking problems, which have been
linked to other health problems. “Recently, gait abnormalities have
been shown to predict non-Alzheimer’s disease dementia, so
recognition, early diagnosis and treatment of this disabling condition
may be possible through early detection of walking and balance
problems.”

Baezner says researchers do not fully understand why some people’s
white matter changes are worse than others or what causes the changes,
however, a clear link to insufficiently treated high blood pressure
has been shown.

Source: American Academy of Neurology
http://www.physorg.com/news124990876.html
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