Physical Inactivity is Liable to the Increased Cardiovascular Risk and Impaired Cognitive Profile
Description
Physically active patients are hypothesized to have normal cognitive functions and physically inactive individuals, in the same cognitive condition, show a high percentage of fat and increased cardiovascular risk. The recruitment of patients began on August 14, 2017 and lasted until September 29, 2017. Initially, the volunteers began through personal and verbal contact in the CEAE, in which the researcher informed all the objectives and methodological procedures of the study. The inclusion criteria were to be a patient of CEAE, to reside in Viçosa - MG and to be available at the pre-determined time and dates. Exclusion criteria were amputation of limbs, use of prostheses, wheelchair users, and use of any kind of displacement protection, any limitation of joint movement, type 1 diabetes and lack of understanding of pedometer use. From this, the sample size was calculated in the StatCalc software program Epi InfoTM, version 7.2.0.1 (Georgia, United States). The calculation of the sample size considered a 95% confidence level, prevalence of 50% in relation to the analyzed variables and a maximum admissible error of 5%, reaching a minimum of 119 participants. From this, the sample size was 120 individuals which 78 women with mean age of 60 years and 42 men with mean age of 64 years, 84 of whom had DM + SAH, 20 only DM, and 16 had only SAH. After they were informed about the study and the patients accepted to participate, the Informed Consent Form (ICF) was signed. Assessment of Physical Activity In order to enjoy the contact with the patient, immediately after delivery of the ICF, the Digi-Walker® Pedometer (Model CW-700, Yamax Corporation, Tokyo, Japan) was offered. The purpose of this equipment was to verify the number of daily steps for eight consecutive days. Assessment of Cognitive Function After seven days of using the pedometer, the patients returned to CEAE to give back it and at that time, data stored on the device was recorded and other procedures were performed. Initially the brief cognitive screening battery (BCSB) was applied, whose objective was to evaluate several cognitive functions through the presentation of a card with 10 concrete figures to the volunteer. The use of the BCSB consists of the presentation of the card and the patient is asked to name the numbers represented on this card (this moment was not used for cognitive evaluation). Subsequently, the card was taken from the patient's vision and he should tell which pictures he had just seen, his incidental memory was observed at that time, which was also not used as an assessment of cognitive impairment in this study, according to the authors' instrument. Assessment of Anthropometry and Body Composition Some anthropometric variables were evaluated in order to identify possible cardiovascular risks and accumulation of excessive body fat. Low level of daily physical activity is apparently correlated with obesity, elevated cardio-vascular risk, and cognitive dysfunction.