Physical or cognitive intervention for the improvement of the semantic memory in major active persons: a pilot study.

Semantic memory is a type of long-term memory that allows access to memories of meanings of concepts, to the understanding of such memories and to the provision of another type of know-ledge that is based on general ideas and knowledge. From its conceptualization it was affirmed that, over the years, this type of memory did not suffer deterioration, nevertheless, recent studies affirm that there can exist decreases associated to the aging in some tasks related with this type of memory. Our objective is to verify if the semantic memory increases by exercising it in a specific way with physical exercise or with tasks of cognitive stimulation. A quasi-experimental study was designed with pretest and posttest measurements in two stages. The experimental groups are made up of attendees of the Neurogym and Fisiogym workshops of the Actíva-te program with SABIEX and the control group is made up of students from the University Classrooms of the Experience of the Miguel Hernández University of Elche. In total the sample is 36 subjects. As a tool to evaluate semantic performance, the test of Carnero Montoro (2004) Fototest was used, before and after receiving 8 sessions of each activity. The results indicate that with cognitive stimulation there are significant improvement results, followed by the improvements produced by physical exercise, compared to subjects who do not perform any workshop. This work contributes data regarding the controversy of what happens with the semantic memory in the aging, as has been evidenced the semantic memory is susceptible of being increased by means of physical exercise or by cognitive stimulation