Research from Nara Medical University Reveals New Findings on Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine (Age differences in the association of physical leisure activities with incident disability among community-dwelling older adults): Health and Medicine – Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine

2022 JUL 21 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Hospital & Nursing Home Daily -- Current study results on environmental health and preventive medicine have been published. According to news reporting from Nara Medical University by NewsRx journalists, research stated, “The relationship between leisure activities (LA) in old age and prevention of disability has not been fully investigated, and age and gender differences of these relationships are unknown. This study aimed to investigate whether physical and cognitive LA predicted incident disability among community-dwelling older adults by age and gender.”

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from Nara Medical University: “We prospectively observed 8,275 residents aged 65 or above without disability at baseline for 3 years. Incident disability was defined as a new certification of the public long-term care insurance system. LA were classified into two types: physical LA and cognitive LA. The frequency of LA was categorized into frequent (i.e., once a week or more), moderate (i.e., monthly or yearly), and non-engagement. Covariates included age, gender, family number, education, perceived economic situation, body mass index, chronic medical conditions, alcohol consumption, smoking status, regular dental visits, depression, cognitive functioning, and social participation. Multivariable Poisson regression models were used to estimate adjusted cumulative incidence ratio (CIR) and 95% confidence interval (CI) for incident disability. We performed stratified analyses by age groups (i.e., the young-old aged 65-74 and the old-old aged 75-97) and gender (i.e., men and women). The 3-year cumulative incidence of disability was 7.5%. After adjustment for covariates and mutual adjustment for both types of LA, a significant dose-response relationship between more frequent LA and lower risk of incident disability was found in young-old physical LA (P-trend < 0.001), in old-old cognitive LA (P-trend = 0.012), in male cognitive LA (P-trend = 0.006), and in female physical LA (P-trend = 0.030). Compared with people without LA, adjusted CIR (95% CI) of frequent LA was 0.47 (0.30-0.74) in young-old physical, 0.75 (0.58-0.96) in old-old cognitive, 0.65 (0.46-0.89) in male cognitive, and 0.70 (0.52-0.95) in female physical. Regarding the effect modification according to age and gender, only interaction between age and physical LA significantly prevented incident disability (P for interaction = 0.019).”

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: “We found age differences in the association of physical LA with incident disability among community-dwelling older adults. An effective measure to prevent long-term care in the community would be to recommend frequent physical LA for the young-old.”

For more information on this research see: Age differences in the association of physical leisure activities with incident disability among community-dwelling older adults. Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine, 2022,27(0):16-16. (Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine - https://environhealthprevmed.biomedcentral.com/). The publisher for Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine is BMC.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1265/ehpm.21-00018.

Our news editors report that more information may be obtained by contacting Kimiko Tomioka, Nara Prefectural Health Research Center, Nara Medical University. Additional authors for this research include Midori Shima, Keigo Saeki.

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