SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Aging Neurosci.
Sec. Neurocognitive Aging and Behavior
Volume 17 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fnagi.2025.1666449
This article is part of the Research TopicInteractions of Environment and Exercise on Geriatric HealthView all 4 articles
The effects of Nordic walking on cognitive function in older adults: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Provisionally accepted
- 1Beijing Sport University, Beijing, China
- 2Guangxi University, Nanning, China
- 3Nankai University Binhai Campus, Tianjin, China
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Objectives Nordic walking (NW), as a specialized form of aerobic exercise, emerges as a promising strategy to improve the cognitive function in older population. However, the effectiveness of NW has yet to be definitively confirmed due to the variances in the study designs and observations. This systematic review and meta-analysis was thus conducted to examine the effect of NW interventions on cognitive function of older adults. Methods The search was conducted in August 2025 on Web of Science, PubMed, SPORT-Discus, Medline, the Cochrane Library, Scopus, and PsycINFO databases. Two reviewers independently reviewed the search results, extracted the data, and assessed the risk of bias and certainty of evidence. Meta-analyses and meta-regressions were performed to determine the overall effect size and the impact of potential moderators. Results Initial screening identified 336 records, and after full-text assessment, eight studies (from 2014 to 2024) comprising 327 participants (71.19 ± 5.44 yrs) were included. The effect size of NW on executive function was significant [Hedges' g = 0.89, 95% CI (0.27, 1.50), p = 0.01], while the effects were non-significant for global function, memory function, attention, information processing, and perceptual ability (p > 0.05). Subgroup analysis indicated that the health conditions of participants and the types of control groups significantly moderated executive function. Specifically, This is a provisional file, not the final typeset article NW showed significant improvements (i) in older adults with health conditions and (ii) compared with inactive control groups (p = 0.04). Meta-regression revealed a significant positive correlation between the total intervention time of NW and its effect size (p<0.01). Conclusions This systematic review and meta-analysis demonstrates that NW interventions could improve executive function in older adults, especially those with health conditions.
Keywords: Nordic walking, Exercise, Cognitive Function, older adults, Meta-analysis
Received: 17 Jul 2025; Accepted: 03 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Zhu, Gan, Wang, Gao, Liu, Guo and Niu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Jianyu Gan, Beijing Sport University, Beijing, China
Jianfeng Niu, Beijing Sport University, Beijing, China
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