Effect of Physical Exercise on Sleep Quality in Elderly Adults: A Systematic Review with a Meta-Analysis of Controlled and Randomized Studies

Abstract

Introduction: Aging is directly related to sleep problems. Primary insomnia has a negative impact on the lives of elderly adults, altering cognitive and metabolic functions. Physical activity is positively related to improvement in sleep quality. The objective of this systematic review was to analyze the effects of physical activity programs in healthy elderly individuals aged 60 years or older, using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) as a tool. Methods: The search was performed in the PubMed and Scielo databases, July 2021. Only randomized clinical trials that evaluated the role of physical exercise in the sleep quality of elderly patients were selected by two independent reviewers. Results: The result of the PSQI analysis showed that compared with the control condition, the exercise intervention was beneficial for the groups with insomnia (SMD: −0.57; 95% CI: −0.73 to −0.4; p < 0.00001; I2 = 53%) and without insomnia (SMD: −0.61; 95% CI: −0.75 to −0.47; p < 0.00001; I2 = 73%) and for the two groups combined (SMD: −0.59; 95% CI: −0.70 to −0.49; p < 0.0001, I2 = 68%). Conclusion: The systematic and continuous practice of physical exercise significantly improves perceived sleep quality in elderly individuals. Therefore, physical activities can be used as a tool to prevent sleep disorders and improve health in general. Future studies may clarify the comparison between aerobic and resistance exercises, evaluate the dose–response relationship and include more participants.

Time-restricted feeding and cognitive function in sedentary and physically active elderly individuals: Ramadan diurnal intermittent fasting as a model

“…This may be explained by the physical training effects in the active group. Previous reports suggest a beneficial role of chronic training schedule on inhibitory function (68,69), processing speed (70), insomnia, daytime sleepiness, and sleep quality (71,72). Furthermore, from before to during RDIF, our results showed an improvement in the majority of cognitive function variables for the active group, including attention, executive function, inhibition, recognition memory, and associative memory; there were no changes for other cognitive domains including processing speed and associative learning.…”

“…This may be explained by the physical training effects in the active group. Previous reports suggest a beneficial role of chronic training schedule on inhibitory function ( 68 , 69 ), processing speed ( 70 ), insomnia, daytime sleepiness, and sleep quality ( 71 , 72 ).…”

The Effect of Physical Activity on Sleep Quality and Sleep Disorder: A Systematic Review

“…[ The association between physical activities and sleep quality was exclusively reported in 18 articles [3,4,13,16,18,[26][27][28][30][31][32][33][35][36][37]39,40], while five articles reported an association between physical activities and insomnia and other sleep disorders [15,20,29,38,41]. In all articles, physical activity was positively associated with sleep quality, which indicates that physical activities improve sleep quality.…”

“…Of the articles reporting associations between physical activities and insomnia and other sleep disorders [15,20,29,38,41], one reported that physical exercise had a positive impact on both the insomnia group of elderly adults (standardized mean difference (SMD): -0.57; 95%CI: -0.73 to -0.4; p < 0.001; I2 = 53%), noninsomnia group (SMD: -0.61; 95% CI: -0.75 to -0.47; p < 0.00001; I2 = 73%), and both groups combined (SMD: -0.59; 95%CI: -0.70 to -0.49; p < 0.0001, I2 = 68%) [29]. A study conducted on adults with insomnia found that both physical exercise and mind-body exercise interventions led to similar improvements in subjective sleep quality, and short-term interventions (lasting three months or less) showed a significantly greater reduction in sleep disturbances compared to long-term interventions (lasting more than three months) [15].…”

Exercise under hypoxia on glucose tolerance in type 2 diabetes mellitus risk individuals: A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…The statistical power will be calculated using the meta power calculator (available for free on https://jtiebel.shinyapps.io/MetaPowerCalculator/ ). A study is regarded adequately powered if it has a statistical power of 0.8 at a significance level of 0.05[ 21 ].…”