As our population ages, more and more older adults are living in long-term care facilities where they often have specific and significant healthcare and social care needs. Unfortunately, many of these residents spend a lot of time sitting down, which can make their health problems worse.
Our new paper with Daniele found that encouraging older adults to spend more time being active and less time sitting down can significantly improve their physical functioning and mood. This study involved 111 older adults living in a long-term care setting in Italy, and the intervention focused on increasing physical activity to at least 150 minutes per week.
The results showed that the intervention group had steady and significant improvements in physical functioning, while the control group declined over time. These findings suggest that promoting physical activity in care home residents can have important benefits for their physical and mental health, and may help reduce the burden on healthcare services.
The full paper is available online:
Magistro D, Carlevaro F, Magno F, Simon M, Camp N, Kinrade N, Zecca M, Musella G., “Effects of 1 Year of Lifestyle Intervention on Institutionalized Older Adults,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, vol. 18, no. 14, p. 7612, Jul. 2021, doi: 10.3390/ijerph18147612.