Out-of-home Activities For Older People Is Healthier And Less Depressive

Older persons are more active when they leave home and get involved in physical activity, indicates a study of postdoctoral researcher Erja Portegijs, conducted at the Gerontology Research Center of the University of Jyväskylä, according to alphagalileo.

"As we expected, persons were more physically active on the days when they moved in a larger area compared to when they stayed at home or within their neighborhood," Portegijs says.

Using cars is common for those who leave home. "Yet, our study results show that persons traveling outside the town had less inactivity time than when they stayed within the neighborhood," Portegijs explains. Increasing physical activity and reducing inactivity can help to improve health.

Just leaving the house to visit friends and do some shopping could actually be helathy. "Not all people are drawn to physical activity. Therefore, it may be a valuable approach to stimulate older people to go out of home in order to increase their total amount of physical activity," Portegijs speculates. "However, further interventional studies would be required to determine the health benefits of such an approach," she continues.

A research project studying 174 older men and women in the Jyväskylä region, Central Finland, led to these findings. The participants wore an accelerometer for 4-7 days and documented their regular activities and movements.

It is concluded that a "three-month outdoor activity intervention may improve the mood among older people with severe mobility limitations," according to ncbi.

The results were published online in an open access international scientific journal PLOS ONE on August 7, 2015. The study was sponsored by the Academy of Finland ASU-LIVE thematic program and the Ministry of Education and Culture.