AAN: Fitness Loss No Faster in AD than in Non-Demented

Good news or bad news depending on your perspective.

Over time, people with mild Alzheimer's disease lose cardiorespiratory fitness -- but no faster than people without dementia, a researcher said here.

The finding, from a longitudinal study of 108 older people, was "somewhat surprising," according to Eric Vidoni, PhD, of the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas.

But at the same time, a decline in fitness was correlated with more rapid progression of dementia, he said at the annual meeting here of the American Academy of Neurology.

Good news:
If you are a demented AD person, your fitness decline is apparently no worse than a non-demented person.

Bad news:
If you are supposedly not demented, you are no worse off than the demented. (maybe this is good news to some)

Bad news:
If you let your fitness decline, perhaps you are demented, only undiagnosed.

Bad news:
Fat people are either demented or at higher risk of dementia.

Bad news:
Fat people have already declined in their fitness.