Immobility in the elderly is often the reason behind low independence and quality of life. It also increases the risk of falls and chronic diseases for the aged. The Lifestyle Interventions and Independence for Elders (LIFE) study, which involved a large multicenter clinical trial, reports that if older adults follow a regular structured physical activity in a clinical setting, it could significantly reduce immobility.
To see if this could also work in a real-world environment, a team of researchers from the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (USDA HNRCA) at Tufts University conducted a pilot study at the Somerville Council on Aging in Somerville, Massachusetts. The study is the first of its kind to try and translate the benefits of physical activity of the LIFE trial to a senior community center setting. The findings of the study were published recently in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences.
The study showed that it is quite safe and attainable bringing the physical activity intervention from a controlled clinical environment into a community-based setting for the elderly. Older adults who showed up at at least 25 percent of the weekly classes showed sustainable improvements in terms of mobility over a six month period.
The research team also saw that the exercise program could be associated to with increased executive cognitive function, improved quality of life, and reduced (around 60 percent) occurrences of falls. There were no severe adverse events that affected the program participants.
“The overarching objective of the pilot study was to translate the physical activity program from a rigorously controlled clinical setting to a representative, real-world environment for older adults”, said first and corresponding author Kieran F. Reid, who is also a scientist at the Nutrition, Exercise, Physiology, and Sarcopenia Laboratory at the USDA HNRCA. “We wanted to test whether the physical activity intervention could be safely and effectively integrated within the existing infrastructure of the senior center,” he added. “The results are very encouraging.”
The pilot study involved around 40 older adults aged 65-89 with mobility constraints. Half of these participants were asked to a follow a scheduled program of walking, strength, flexibility and balance training. The other half were asked to participate in a health education control group. After the six-month pilot study was over, factors like adherence rates, mobility levels, cognitive function, quality of life, depressive symptoms, and risk of falling for both the groups were compared.
Senior author Roger A. Fielding, who is also the senior scientist and director of the Nutrition, Exercise, Physiology, and Sarcopenia Laboratory at the USDA HNRCA said, “With an increase in prevalence of mobility limitations in a growing aging population, introducing effective physical activity interventions to a community-setting can lead to big changes for these vulnerable populations.”
Researchers do realize that there are some limitations of the study, like the small sample-size and the short span of the trial and are therefore, developing another translational study on a large scale to show how physical activity intervention works in a community-based setting.