Maria S. Cirilo-Sousa is an assistant professor (Ph.D.) in the Department of Physical Education – Associate Graduate Program in Physical Education at the Federal University of Paraíba. Her research interests involve the resistance exercise with blood flow restriction with different objectives in different populations.
As the population ages, there is a need of developing ways to prevent or revert the deleterious effects of aging, especially in climacteric women who suffer with the problems caused by hormonal changes. Exercise is a nonmedicated intervention that can be applied on that population. The benefits of physical activity can positively change body composition, increase levels of muscular strength, balance, and functional capacity. Strength training, aerobic exercise, whole body vibration, and aquatic exercises are some of the modalities that health professionals can prescript to these individuals. Although there are many studies about these exercises, a technique called blood flow restriction is emerging as an alternative to high load exercises but with the same benefits.
Part of the book: Menopause
Comparison of cognitive performance among elderly people practicing training with weights and sedentary lifestyle. Estudy descriptive, cross-sectional and comparative, composition for 24 elderly between 60 and 70 years, divided into 2 groups, (G1) submitted to weight training and sedentary (G2). The G1 was submitted to 32 training sessions with traditional weight. Both groups were submitted to CogState® computerized cognitive testing batteries. The data were not parametric, using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for the analysis of the dispersion curve and the Mann-Whitney test in the comparison of the cognitive performance variables. The results were performed with a significance level of 0.05 by the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS®), version 16.0. The best cognitive performance was observed among the elderly practicing resistance exercises, as well as significant differences in the TRS and TRE variables. Elderly people who exercise with weights when compared with cognitive performance demonstrate results of the paradigms when compared to the elderly. With this, he concludes that weight training is effective in improving cognitive performance.
Part of the book: Cardiorespiratory Fitness