CHARACTERISTIC CHANGES IN FUNCTIONAL FITNESS FOR SUCCESSFUL DAILY LIVING IN OLDER KOREAN WOMEN

Abstract

1956 The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes in functional fitness of older Korean women as they age. The subjects were 430 women ranging in age from 65 to 85 years. Thirteen items related to the functional fitness were measured. Pearson's correlation coefficients between the performance test items and age were significant (P<0.05) and the mean score of all items remarkably decreased with advancing age. In order to extract functional fitness required for successful daily living, the principal component analysis was applied to the 13 × 13 correlation matrix. As a result, the amount of contribution of the first principal component (P1) was 4.97 and the degree of contribution to total variance was 38.2%. From the P1 scores it is clear that there are substantial decreases in daily living functional fitness with aging. Furthermore, in order to analyze the factorial structure of the functional fitness, extracted factors were rotated with normal varimax criterion. The functional fitness were categorized to 6 factors: whole body movement (F1), flexibility (F2), change of body posture (F3), balance (F4), muscle endurance (F5), agility (F6). Results of the comparison of functional fitness factors showed that a decline with advancing age was significant for F1 and F3. It is suggested that the maintenance and increase of muscle strength as well as the ability of whole body movement is very important for the achievement of high degree of independence in daily living in older Korean women. Supported by Center for Tsukuba Advanced Research Alliance