The Relationship between Continuous Implementation of the Occupations of Sport and Reading with the Executive Functions

One consequence of aging is decline of executive functions. Different, factors such as exercise, have effects on executive function. The aim of tthe present study was to answer the question whether the individuals who are consistently engaged in occupations of sport and reading have better executive functions.
The current retrospective study was performed on 100 participants aged between 50-95 years old. Cluster layer sampling was conducted in four districts of Tehran. Initially, participants were included in four groups of only reading, only sports, both, and none according to demographic questionnaire. Next, they performed three tests of Stroop, Tower of London, and Wisconsin for evaluating the executive functions. To examine the difference between the average scores of executive functions in the four groups, one-way analysis of variance and to examine the difference between groups, paired t-test with Bonferroni correction were run.
The results of the present study showed that there is a significant difference between people who have no continuous occupations (sports and reading) from adolescence to the present and the other three groups in executive function tests. But no significant difference was observed between the other groups.
People who are doing one of the occupations of sport, reading, or both have better executive functions compared with those who do not do any of these occupations. It seems that early enagagement in sport and reading in younger years and continuing it until aging could prevent a sharp drop in executive functions in aging. But further longitudinal studies are needed to investigate this theory.