Relationship between physical activity and functional capacity change in aged cohort in São Paulo, Brazil.
Maria Claudia Martins Ribeiro, Adriana Sañudo, Eduardo J Simões and 1 others
PMID 34787237WHAT IT FOUND
After accounting for age, BMI and earlier need for help with daily activities, weekly leisure-time physical activity was not linked to later need for help in older adults.
Age, BMI and baseline daily-activity limitations were linked to more limitation.
Key findings
01In the bivariate analysis, each additional minute per week of leisure-time physical activity was associated with a 0.003-point lower ADL dependence score.
02After adjustment, more leisure-time physical activity was still linked to fewer ADL limitations, but the association was weak and not statistically significant.
03In the final model, each additional year of age increased ADL limitations by 0.14, each additional kg/m2 of BMI increased them by 0.93, and each additional baseline limitation increased follow-up limitations by 0.4.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Physical activity and daily activity limitations were measured by self-report, which can be affected by memory, mood and cognition. Only two time points were used over an average of 3.5 years, so changes in activity, BMI and function were not well captured. The analysis included only 287 participants with follow-up data, so it may not detect small effects. Participants were from a highly educated, high-income neighbourhood with very high human development indicators, so results may not apply to poorer or less resourced older populations. Because this was an observational cohort, it cannot show that changing physical activity caused changes in functional capacity.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that increasing leisure-time physical activity reduces need for help with daily activities. The inverse association was seen only before adjustment and was not statistically significant after accounting for age, BMI and baseline ADL limitations.