Impact of exercise in community-dwelling older adults

Concern has been expressed that preventive measures in older people might increase frailty by increasing survival without improving health. We investigated the impact of exercise on the probabilities of health improvement, deterioration and death in community-dwelling older people. In the Canadian S...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2009-07, Vol.4 (7), p.e6174-e6174
Main Authors: Hubbard, Ruth E, Fallah, Nader, Searle, Samuel D, Mitnitski, Arnold, Rockwood, Kenneth
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activities of daily living
Adults
Aged
Aging
Canada
Exercise
Female
Frail Elderly
Frailty
Geriatrics
Health
Health aspects
Health Status
Humans
Male
Mathematics
Mortality
Older people
Public Health and Epidemiology
Public Health and Epidemiology/Exercise and Sports
Sporting goods
Studies
Survival
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Summary:Concern has been expressed that preventive measures in older people might increase frailty by increasing survival without improving health. We investigated the impact of exercise on the probabilities of health improvement, deterioration and death in community-dwelling older people. In the Canadian Study of Health and Aging, health status was measured by a frailty index based on the number of health deficits. Exercise was classified as either high or low/no exercise, using a validated, self-administered questionnaire. Health status and survival were re-assessed at 5 years. Of 6297 eligible participants, 5555 had complete data. Across all grades of frailty, death rates for both men and women aged over 75 who exercised were similar to their peers aged 65 to 75 who did not exercise. In addition, while all those who exercised had a greater chance of improving their health status, the greatest benefits were in those who were more frail (e.g. improvement or stability was observed in 34% of high exercisers versus 26% of low/no exercisers for those with 2 deficits compared with 40% of high exercisers versus 22% of low/no exercisers for those with 9 deficits at baseline). In community-dwelling older people, exercise attenuated the impact of age on mortality across all grades of frailty. Exercise conferred its greatest benefits to improvements in health status in those who were more frail at baseline. The net effect of exercise should therefore be to improve health status at the population level.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0006174