In aged care facilities like nursing homes and assisted living centers, a major challenge is declining physical health and fitness among residents. Therefore, there is substantial interest in exercise programs that can work for people in such situations. For example, one study examined the use of a group exercise program in aged care facilities in South Africa (Rugbeer et al., 2017). This article will briefly present the findings of that study.
Methods
The population in this study ultimately consisted of 83 residents across five aged care facilities. These participants were assigned into Group A or Group B. All participants took part in a 12-week exercise program adapted from the American College of Sport Medicine (ACSM). Participants in Group A exercised three times a week, while participants in Group B exercised two times a week.
Each exercise session consisted of the following:
- A 10-minute warm up involving:
- Dynamic stretching
- Continuous rhythmic endurance activities, like easy walking, light marching, toe and heel presses, and low knee lifts
- Rehearsal of exercise sequences and specific joint mobility exercises
- 45 minutes of strength, endurance, and mobility/balance exercises involving:
- Walking
- Rhythmic and continuous movement
- Resistance exercises:
- Leg press or squat
- Knee extension
- Knee curl
- Calf raise
- Chest press
- Seated row
- Upright row
- Arm curl
- Shoulder press
- Abdominal/core exercise
- A five-minute cool down and stretching routing
During these exercise sessions, Borg’s Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) was used to monitor the intensity of exercise.
The following measure was taken at baseline and following completion of the exercise program:
- The Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36), which assesses health-related quality of life (HRQoL) through eight subscales:
- Role physical (RP)
- Bodily pain (BP)
- General health (GH)
- Physical functioning (PF)
- Vitality (VT)
- Role emotional (RE)
- Social functioning (SF)
- Mental health (MH)
Results
The following results were obtained:
- Upon completion of the 12-week exercise program, participants in Group A showed:
- significantly increased vitality
- significantly increased mental health score
- significantly increased social functioning
- significantly increased mental component score
- Upon completion of the 12-week exercise program, participants in Group B showed:
- significantly increased social functioning
- significantly increased physical component score
- significantly increased mental component score
Ultimately, the exercise program showed significant benefits for both groups of participants, with a slightly larger benefit in the group that exercised two times a week instead of three times a week.
Wrapping up
The results of this study suggest that exercising has significant benefits for residents of an aged care facility, whether that exercise is completed two times a week or three times a week. This is promising, because group exercise programs can be easily implemented in most aged care facilities with little extra cost. As large portions of the global population continue to age into assisted living facilities, future research should continue to examine ways that their lives can be improved, both physically and mentally.
References
Rugbeer, N., Ramklass, S., Mckune, A., van Heerden, J. (2017). The Effect of Group Exercise Frequency on Health Related Quality of Life in Institutionalized Elderly. The Pan African Medical Journal, 26(1), 35. doi: 10.11604/pamj.2017.26.35.10518.
