Chinese Traditional Exercise (CTE) can significantly improve the cognitive function of the elderly, but there is no further evidence in different areas of cognitive function and exercise programs. Therefore, the purpose of this review was to further discuss the current Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) of CTE on the improvement of cognitive function in the elderly aged 60 years and older. Material and Methods: The databases were searched including Web of Science, PubMed, Cochrane Library, Scopus, CNYNET, VIP and Wanfang. The Cochrane systematic evaluation method was followed, and 25 RCTs met the final inclusion criteria. Results: Of the 25 RCTs eventually included, 2 were of high quality and the rest were of medium quality; Quantitative analysis showed that CTE intervention could significantly improve the cognitive function of the elderly, including executive function, processing speed, long-term storage and retrieval, global cognition, cognitive-motor, short-term and working memory and physiological signals. Intervention methods include Taijiquan, Baduanjin, Wuqinxi, Qigong and so on, among which the 24-form taijichuan has the best effect on the improvement of cognitive function in the elderly. CTE intervention more than 3 times per week, each time 60min, intervention for 12 weeks or more can achieve the best effect of improving cognitive function of the elderly. Conclusions: CTE can significantly improve the cognitive function of the elderly aged 60 and above, but the improvement effect of specific CTE on specific areas of cognitive function needs to be verified by further RCTs experiments. Keywords: aging • cardiovascular function • cognitive impairment • plasticity Copyright: © 2021, the Authors. Published by Archives of Budo Conflict of interest: Authors have declared that no competing interest exists Ethical approval: The research was approved by the local Ethics Committee Provenance & peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer-reviewed Source of support: This work was supported by the budget of the Humanities and Social Science Research General Project of Ministry of Education in 2020, The Construction and Empirical Research on The Functional Movement System of Young Primary School Students (U6-7) 20YJC890047 Author’s address: Xiaoquan Zhang, Shenyang Normal University, 253 Huanghe North Street, Huanggu District, Shenyang, Liaoning, China; e-mail: xiaoquanzhang@dlut.edu.cn