Fitness for Brain Optimization for Late-Life Depression

"Participants will attend on-site supervised AE sessions 3 times per week for the first 6 weeks, twice weekly for weeks 7-12; once weekly for weeks 13-18.~All supervised sessions will start and end with 5-minute warm-up and cool-down and will involve exercise on the treadmill, elliptical, and/or bike. During AE sessions, participants will exercise so that their heart rate is approximately 65% of their peak heart rate and gradually increase the intensity of exercise so that their heart rate is between 70 and 85% of their peak heart rate. All participants will wear heart rate monitors and encouraged to exercise in their target heart rate zone. Supervised AE sessions will gradually increase to 50-minutes per session"

Participants will increase at-home AE during the 6-month intervention period with weeks 19-26 occurring entirely at-home. As participants transition to home-based exercise, they will be equipped with a polar heart rate monitor and will be instructed to use this to record average heart rate during each exercise session. On a log sheet, they will record both average heart rate during exercise and average subjective rating of perceived exertion (RPE) during each exercise session.

To control for the social component of the AE intervention participants in the SE group will be invited to attend at total of 25 group meetings over the course of the 6-month study period.