Effects of Chronic Physical Exercise or Multicomponent Exercise Programs on the Mental Health and Cognition of Older Adults Living in a Nursing Home: A Systematic Review of Studies From the Past 10 Years

Abstract

Some nursing homes for the elderly provide holistic care that integrates several interventions, including physical exercise. The aim of this systematic review is to summarize the effects of physical exercise or multicomponent exercise programs on the mental health (wellbeing, anxiety and depression) and cognitive functions of older adults with/without dementia who live in a nursing home and do/do not require wheelchair assistance. To this end, PubMed, PsycInfo and Web of Science are using to identify clinical trials and randomized controlled studies conducted during the period January 2011 to December 2021 to examine the progression of research in this field over the past ten years. In total, 2597 articles are identifying and 21 are including in the systematic review. After selecting articles according to the PRISMA standards, the data extraction and methodological quality assessment of the eligible studies are performing individually by two reviewers and then pooled together. The synthesis of the studies shows that physical exercise or multicomponent exercise programs have a beneficial effect on mental health and cognitive functions. However, this effect is more common among older adults without dementia, compared to their counterparts who have dementia or use wheelchairs. The explanatory mechanisms, lack of benefits from physical exercise and the need to standardize methods are discussing in this regard. Finally, future studies must examine the effects of an innovative and adaptive physical activity program on the mental health and cognitive functions of older adults living in nursing homes.

A realist evaluation of the feasibility of a digital music and movement intervention for older people living in care homes

“…A future larger scale randomised-controlled trial would be necessary to con rm this. However, these ndings are consistent with the literature on the effects of music and movement resources in older adults, indicating positive changes in mental well-being (15,(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25). Physical function tests could usefully complement frailty measurement to aid diagnostic accuracy (42,50).…”

“…Therefore, considerable effort has been devoted to increasing PA and prescribing exercise programmes in older adults, such as the care home resident population (18). PA interventions, including multicomponent (chair-based) exercises or dancing, have been shown to improve cognitive function, physical and mental well-being in this population (19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25).…”

Effects of a 12-week Vivifrail exercise program on intrinsic capacity among frail cognitively impaired community-dwelling older adults: secondary analysis of a multicentre randomised clinical trial

“…Besides inducing muscle mass and function (strength and power) increases [ 53 , 66 ], benefits of these programs might positively impact cognitive [ 28 , 67 , 68 ] and psychological domains [ 56 ]. Whereas our study contributes to the growing evidence around the role of MCE as an effective intervention to improve cognitive function among older adults [ 69 ], it failed at showing benefits on the IC psychology domain, an aspect that remains controversial in the literature [ 38 , 70 ] There is a need for further research on the role of MCE effects on the psychological sphere.…”

Effectiveness of a multicomponent exercise training program for the management of delirium in hospitalized older adults using near-infrared spectroscopy as a biomarker of brain perfusion: Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

“…Physical exercise has been shown to improve cerebral blood flow, increasing neurogenesis and neuroplasticity through the release of neurotransmitters and neurotrophic factors such as insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) and Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF; Ben-Zeev, 2022 ), providing synaptic transmission and improving cognitive function. Physical exercise also decreases the accumulation of amyloid plaques and tau protein which has been shown to improve cognitive functions such as attention, memory, executive tasks, and information processing speed ( Erickson et al, 2019 ; Bliss et al, 2021 ; Cruz et al, 2022 ; Rai and Demontis, 2022 ; Silva et al, 2022 ). In fact, an individualized, multicomponent exercise training program may be an effective therapy for improving cognitive function in very old patients during acute hospitalization ( de Asteasu et al, 2019 , 2022 ), cognitive impairment ( Venegas-Sanabria et al, 2022 ), and depression ( Li et al, 2022 ).…”