Effect of Resistance Exercise on Body Composition and Functional Capacity in Older Women with Sarcopenic Obesity—A Systematic Review with Narrative Synthesis

Abstract

Background: Resistance exercise has shown effectiveness in reducing various risk factors related to sarcopenic obesity (SO) compared to other types of exercise, e.g., aerobic exercise. Objective: This systematic review evaluates the effect of resistance exercise on body composition, muscular strength, and functional capacity among older women with sarcopenic obesity aged ≥ 60 years. Methods: This systematic review is registered on PROSPERO (registration No. CRD42023394603) and follows the PRISMA guidelines. The following electronic databases were used to search the literature: Pedro, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Embase, PubMed, and Web of Science. We included only RCTs that investigated the effect of resistance exercise on body composition and functional capacity. Two independent reviewers conducted the process of study selection and data extraction. Results: The search strategy retrieved 687 results. One hundred and twenty-six records were deleted as duplicates. Consequently, 534 studies were excluded after the title/abstract assessment. After further detailed evaluation of twenty-seven full texts, seven RCTs were included; all the RCTs examined the isolated effect of resistance exercise in women with sarcopenic obesity. The included studies comprised 306 participants, with an average age of 64 to 72 years. We noticed a trend of improvement in the included studies among the intervention groups compared to the control groups among the different outcomes. The study protocol was inconsistent for the intervention settings, duration, and outcomes. Including a modest number of trials made it impossible to perform data meta-analysis. Conclusions: Heterogeneity among studies regarding training protocols and the outcome measures reported limited robust conclusions. Still, resistance exercise intervention can improve body composition and functional capacity among elderly women with sarcopenic obesity.

Multicomponent Exercise Intervention for Preventing Falls and Improving Physical Functioning in Older Nursing Home Residents: A Single-Blinded Pilot Randomised Controlled Trial

“…Falls are also a major public health problem; they create a substantial financial burden for the healthcare system because of the considerable related healthcare expenditures [ 20 ]. Studies have shown that exercises are effective in the prevention of falls, attenuation of their related risk factors, as well as improving the quality of life of older adults [ 21 , 22 , 23 ]. Explicitly, the impact of multicomponent exercise interventions on improving or maintaining physical functions, for example, muscle strength, mobility, and balance, as well as reducing falls for community-dwelling older people, is continuously being investigated and updated in the literature, and findings are substantially consistent [ 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ]; however, the studies on LTCF residents are relatively contradictory and inconclusive [ 7 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 ].…”