In healthy adults, the hippocampus — a part of the brain important to the formation of memories — begins to atrophy around 55 or 60 and even sooner to an even greater degree if one contracts Alzheimer’s. Now psychologists are suggesting that the hippocampus can be modestly expanded, and memory improved, by nothing more than regular walking.
In a study reported in the NYT and published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, among the walkers monitored, the hippocampus had increased in volume by about 2 percent on average; in the others, it had declined by about 1.4 percent.
While it is hard to generalize from this study to other populations like Japan, the researchers were delighted to learn that the hippocampus might expand with exercise. People don’t have to join a gym, he noted. They just need shoes.
For those that have succumbed to Alzheimer’s a Shoe designed by GTX Corp has been made “smart” by fitting it with a discreet patented GPS 2 way Personal Location Services tracking device that will map their location providing care givers the real time emotional security needed to let those in their care have the freedom of mobility…a truly undervalued quality of life until it is taken from us. With the many millions of baby boomers expected to fall victim to dementia around the world, one might expect that personal location based technologies will signal the socialization of our privacy in exchange for our well being.