| dc.description.abstract | Introduction: One of the most significant and current societal transformations is the population's overall aging in Norway. The dependency ratio, the number of dependent people relative to the number of productive people, will be almost double today. Physical activity has a key role in maintaining the independence of older people. Thus, the participation of older adults in daily life with a level of PA is critical for maintaining independence. This longitudinal study made it possible to investigate the association between earlier Physical Activity with Activities of daily living with a large sample size in the Norwegian population.
Objective: This study aimed to investigate the potential relationship and better understand the association between Physical Activity and Personal activities of daily living/Instrumental activities of daily living in older adults in a large Norwegian population.
Method: This longitudinal study included older people (70+, n=7165) from HUNT4 who also participated in HUNT3. This study follows the World Health Organizations' international classification of functioning disability and health (ICF). This study evaluated the ICF model as a framework in four domains, including Activities (Physical Activity), Participation (Personal activities of daily living, Instrumental activities of daily living and Combined activities of daily living), Personal Factors (Age and Sex) and Environmental Factors (marital status). Comprehensive information about participation was based on questions concerning Physical Activity and Activities of daily living (ADL). Physical Activity was used as exposure which included three questions on Exercise Frequency, Exercise Intensity and Exercise Duration.
Furthermore, answers to these Physical Activity questions were combined into a single weekly Physical Activity Index by multiplying Physical Activity's frequency, duration, and intensity, following the method described in Kurtze et al. (2008). Activities of daily living variables were made categorical as Able/Not able. The association between the Physical Activity Index (exposure) and each of the three activities of daily living (outcome) variables was investigated by logistic regression analysis, adjusting for age, sex, and marital status for each variable.
Results and Discussion: Results showed that those participants who responded to the Physical Activity questionnaire with Never have a higher risk of disability in Activities of daily living (Personal activities of daily living, Instrumental activities of daily living and Combined activities of daily living) (p<0.001). Furthermore, participants who reported Moderate to vigorous physical activity or more than Moderate to vigorous physical activity, had a lower risk of disability than other participants. Moreover, there was no evidence of a difference in the probabilities of being Not able between those who were MVPA and those who were Highly active. Surprisingly, our study found that a high percentage of participants could do all daily activities (Personal activities of daily living (94.5%), Instrumental activities of daily living (79.7%), and Combined activities of daily living (78.6%)), and only between 5.5%-21.4% of participants could not do one or more activities. Our study showed that as participants get older, their ability to do activities of daily living decreases. The role of sex was statistically significant in two variables (Instrumental activities of daily living and combined activities of daily living). However, sex was not statistically significant in the personal activities of a daily living variable. There was no statistically significant association between marital status and Personal activities of daily living and Combined Activities of daily living variables.
Conclusion: Having Independence causes improved health and declined costs in Norwegian society.
Keywords: Physical Activity (PA), Activities of daily living (ADL), Personal Activities of daily living (ADLP), Instrumental Activities of daily living (IADL), ICF model, older adults, HUNT4 and HUNT3. | |