Purpose: Pursuing active aging and maintaining the quality of life (QoL) is essential, particularly in older people living in residential care facilities (RCFs). We evaluated physical activity (PA) as an intervention to improve the QoL in this population, trying to hypothesize future perspectives in this field.
Methods: A systematic search was performed on Pubmed. Only randomized control trials or quasi-experimental control group trials were considered.
Results: Results showed that a high-frequency PA can be effective in older people, allowing them to improve their functional mobility, autonomy, anxiety level, balance, and social interactions. Moreover, a moderate-intensity PA showed the most interesting results, improving all the QoL-related aspects considered.
Conclusion: Results highlight the beneficial effects of multidisciplinary intervention strategies in increasing QoL and QoL-related aspects of RCFs older residents, contemplating PA as the main instrument. However, structured PA is necessary to fully understand which protocol could be the most effective.
Keywords: Older people; Physical activity; Quality of life; Residential care facilities.
Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.