The Feasibility of Cognitive-Motor Integration Training in Adults With Dementia

Living our daily lives often requires us to think and move at the same time, and require cognitive-motor integration (CMI). Previous studies have shown that these CMI tasks are impaired in dementia and in asymptomatic adults at high risk of developing dementia, as well as an impaired frontoparietal network. The present study tests the feasibility and preliminary utility of a CMI-based training intervention in adults with dementia, and neurologically healthy older adults. We observed that adults with dementia partaking in the CMI training regime improved their performance. Our results suggest that this approach is promising for future research, and support previous research on CMI performance. We suggest that the improvements or stabilization of measures we observed during our program may be due to an enhanced frontoparietal network. Our findings provide a basis for future studies to assess CMI training as a tool for functional decline prevention in various neuropathological conditions.