Alpen, L. van (Leentje) (2015) Older adults with dementia are sedentary for most of the day. thesis, Human Movement Sciences.
Full text available on request.Abstract
Purpose: Self-reported data suggest that older adults with dementia are inactive. The purpose of the present study was to objectively assess the physical activity (PA) levels of community-dwelling and institutionalized ambulatory patients with dementia, and to compare with the PA levels of cognitive healthy older adults. Methods: We used actigraphy to assess the PA levels in dementia patients (n = 120, mean age: 81.2 ± 7.5, mean Mini-Mental-State Examination score: 17.2 ± 6.5) and their healthy spouses (n = 26, mean age: 79.5 ± 5.6). We characterized PA levels based on the raw data and classified <100 counts/min as sedentary behavior. Results: Dementia patients spent 70% of the day sedentary (1,010 ± 189.2 min) and have a total of 1.85 x 105 ± 1.33 x 105 counts/day. Dementia patients were physically most active between 8:00 and 10:00 am. Institutionalized vs. community-dwelling patients had 23.6% lower daily PA levels (t = 2.888, p = .005) and spent 9.3% longer in sedentariness (t = 2.402, p = .018). Community-dwelling dementia patients vs. cognitive healthy older adults’ daily PA levels and sedentary time were 21.5% lower and 8.9% longer, respectively (t = 3.141, p = .003; t = 2.206, p = .031). Conclusions: Dementia patients are sedentary for most of the day and the little PA they perform is of lower intensity compared to their healthy peers. The highest PA peak is when they get out of bed in the morning. The adverse effects of dementia contribute to the low PA levels and institutionalization probably further facilitates reductions in PA. These are the first results that objectively characterize institutionalized as well as community-dwelling dementia patients’ PA levels and underline the importance for promotion of PA, which is certainly possible in this population.
| Item Type: | Thesis (UNSPECIFIED) |
|---|---|
| Supervisor name: | Heuvelen, dr. M. van (Marieke) and Hortobágyi, prof. dr. T. (Tibor) |
| Faculty: | Medical Sciences |
| Date Deposited: | 06 Apr 2022 09:31 |
| Last Modified: | 06 Apr 2022 09:31 |
| URI: | https://umcg.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/3064 |
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