Diagnosis and Management in Dementia - Chapter 52: Exercise, cognitive creativity, and dementia

Dementia limits the ability of individuals to maintain social relationships, functional independence, and physical and psychological vitality in older age. Therefore, it is of critical importance to consider lifestyle preventative and therapeutic strategies, such as physical activity participation, involvement in cognitively stimulating creative activities, or perhaps a combination of the two. This chapter discusses the potential impact of dementia on creativity, physical activity, and exercise participation and whether exercise and creativity may each exert individual effects on the maintenance and/or facilitation of cognitive health. We explore these suggested influencers in the context of biological and theoretical mechanisms underlying dementia and provide recommendations for future research experiments unifying physical exercise and creative activities into tailored interventions designed to better comprehend this disease and perhaps counteract the devastating implications dementia prognoses present to optimal physical and mental functioning across the human life span.