Benefits Vigilance And Cognition

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Walking has been thought to be an autonomically regulated motor function until studies showed a large amount of cognitive input involved in walking, (Malcolm, B., Foxe, J., Butler, J., & Sanctis, P. 2015). In our everyday lives while walking we are balancing between the constant input we are receiving from our external environment while at simultaneously maintaining our gait. The more attention demanding the input is while walking, such as texting or talking requires more cortical resources. Overloading cortical resources can result in impairments in either input task itself, gait stability, or both (Malcom et al., 2015). This shows the importance of attention in cognitive function. With ageing there has been research which found adult brains have reduced cognitive flexibility to manage more than one task at a time. This shows that as we age, we have reduced vigilance. As cited in Malcom et al., (2015) defines vigilance as “the capacity to maintain attention over time and the ability to respond appropriately to relevant stimuli.” Research has been carried out on the relationship between exercise and cognition which is believed to be an important factor in cognition in young adults, however there is limited supported evidence whether exercise can lead to improved vigilance in adults.

A main factor that benefits vigilance and cognition is exercise. This leads
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However there is a gap in the literature where there has been a limited amount of experiments involving exercise and cognition in older adults. Past research has shown a natural decline in vigilance as we age. However whether exercise can lead to an improved vigilance in older adults has not yet been studied. I propose to examine the effect of exercise by means of cardiovascular fitness and focusing on whether vigilance can be improved in older

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