Correlation of physical activity and functional independence and quality of life in elderly population residing in old age homes
Description
Title: Correlation of Physical Activity with Functional Independence and Quality of Life among community dwelling elderly population. Introduction: Ageing is a global phenomenon. Age-related physiological changes result in a decline in functional skills as the population ages. Reduced functional abilities result in issues with everyday living, self-care, and psychosocial issues. Regular physical activity is known to enhance functional ability, physical fitness, and well-being and to mitigate the adverse effects of aging. Aim: This study was aimed to evaluate the impact of physical activity on the functional independence and quality of life of elderly population in community. Material: A total of 328 elderly individuals aged 60 above years were recruited using purposive sampling based on selection criteria. Method: The Global Physical Activity Questionnaire (GPAQ) was employed to assess the level of Physical Activity and Functional Independence Measure (FIM) was evaluated to determine the participants' level of independence. For measuring the Quality of Life SF12 scale was used. Results: The study comprised 172 male participants with a mean age of 70.23±16.56 and 156 female participants with a mean age of 69.2± 12.89. The Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was used to determine the normality of the data, as data was found to be not normally distributed. The findings revealed a strong positive correlation between physical activity and functional independence (r=0.453, p>0.05). Also, there found a positive, moderate and significant relationship between physical activity and Physical component of SF12 (r=0.345,p=>0.005). And there found a negative but significant relationship between physical activity and mental component of SF12. Conclusion: This study found a strong positive correlation between physical activity and functional independence. This shows that affected physical activity can be major contributing factor in the level of independence. It has been proven that higher disability was found to be associated with lower physical activity. Also, low Physical activity affects quality of life of a elderly, it can be challenging to do daily activities by themselves.