Physical Fitness Changes In Prefrail Elderly Adults After 4-years’S Participation Of Community-based Health-care Classes

Abstract

PURPOSE: There are few long-term follow-up reports on health status or physical fitness changes in frail elderly adults who are participating in community-based health-care classes. This study aimed to examine physical fitness changes between community-dwelling elderly adults with or without prefrailty after participating in preventive health-care classes for 4 years. METHODS: We defined “prefrailty” as grip strength <30 kg for men and <20 kg for women. Subjects were divided into two groups based on grip strength (with or without prefrailty) before the preventive health care classes started. We examined the physical fitness changes (i.e. grip strength and 10-m walking speed) in these two groups. RESULTS: Twenty-two men and 43 women participated in the classes for 4 years (2011 to 2015), including 3 men and 6 women with prefrailty. At baseline, grip strength showed statistically significant differences between groups with or without prefrailty in both men (with:23.2±3.2 kg, without:37.3±5.6 kg) and women (with:13.7±1.2 kg, without:23.7±3.5 kg). Also, walking speed showed statistically significant difference between groups in both males (with:1.65 ±0.22 m/sec, without:2.06 ±0.51 m/sec), and females (with:1.49±0.28 m/sec, without:1.83±0.25 m/sec). After 4 years, an analysis of covariance using age as a co-variable showed that the changes of grip strength were significantly different between two groups (p<0.05), but the walking speeds were not significantly different between two groups. Changes in walking speed were increased in both groups with or without prefrailty (with: +0.10±0.17 m/s, without: +0.04±0.08 m/s) There were no gender differences in changes of grip strength and walking speed. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first demonstration that the long-term participation in preventative health-care classes effectively increased walking speed in elderly adults with and without prefrailty.