Development of functinal fitness promotion program for community- dwelling elderly people

H. Kohno*, Y. Oida, K. Egawa, T. Nagamatsu, Y. Kitabatake, Y. Nishijima, K. Aoki, Y. Mahre, T. Arao

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine exercise adherence and effectiveness of functional fitness promotion program for the elderly persons. The program was constituted the home-based exercise program and the facilitating program for exercise adherence and participation. The subjects was 46 aged persons(18 males; 69.7±4.9yrs, 28 females; 68.3±5.4yrs) in the intervention group and 46 aged persons (13 males; 68.7±3.4yrs, 33 females; 69.0±4.6yrs) in the control group. The exercise program was composed of muscle stretching for flexibility, muscle conditioning for muscle strength, and fast walking for aerobics. The facilitating program which was designed to enhance subjects motivation for continued involvement in exercise program included educational and motivational strategies such as understanding functional fitness level, consulting for individual setting of exercise goal, learning on health benefits of regular exercise and exercise skills, group meeting for exchanging information on exercise experiences, exercising at home and community, and self-monitoring on exercise mode and time. The facilitating program was applied in the periodic classes which were held every 2 weeks over the period of 5 months. Informations of functional fitness, knee extension muscle strength, 3-minute-walking distance, sit-and- reach, and habitual exercises were obtained with using the standardized tests and questioners before and after the intervention period. Before intervention period, physical fitness level and total energy expenditure of habitual exercises in the intervention group were not significantly different from those in control group. The program adherence and class participation were 73.9% and 92.2% at the end of the intervention period, respectively. Intervention group showed significant improvement in every functional fitness and physical fitness items. The improvement of zig-zag walking, hand-working performance, and sit-and-reach in intervention group were significantly higher than those in control group. These results suggest that the functional fitness promotion program composed of exercise and facilitating programs were effective for enhancing subjects motivation for continued involvement in exercise program and promoting functional fitness level in the elderly persons.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)15-25
Number of pages11
JournalBulletin of the Physical Fitness Research Institute
Issue number96
Publication statusPublished - 1999
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Elderly people
  • Functional fitness
  • Promotion program

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Physiology

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