A groundbreaking study conducted by researchers at the Universities of Birmingham, UK, and Extremadura, Spain, has demonstrated that brain endurance training (BET), which combines physical exercise with cognitive tasks, can significantly improve both mental and physical performance in older adults. The research, published in Psychology of Sport and Exercise, focused on 24 sedentary women, aged 65 to 78, who were divided into three groups: one receiving BET, another doing exercise only, and a control group.
The BET group, which performed cognitive tasks before exercise sessions, showed superior improvements in both cognitive performance (a 7.8% increase) and physical performance (a 29.9% increase) compared to the exercise-only group. The findings suggest that BET could be an effective intervention for improving the health span of older adults, potentially reducing the risks of falls and accidents. Overall, these results are particularly significant, given that mental fatigue has been shown to impair both cognitive and physical performance in older adults, including balance control. However, researchers note that further studies with larger and more diverse sample sizes are needed.