Effects of Moderate-Intensity Exercise on Physiological, Behavioral, and Emotional Responses to Family Caregiving: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Compared with nutrition participants (NU), exercise participants (EX) showed significant improvements in the following: total energy expenditure (baseline and post-test means [SD] for EX = 1.4 [1.9] and 2.2 [2.2] kcal/kg/day; for NU = 1.2 [1.7] and 1.2 [1.6] kcal/kg/day; p <.02); stress-induced blood pressure reactivity (baseline and post-test systolic blood pressure reactivity values for EX = 21.6 [12.3] and 12.4 [11.2] mm Hg; for NU = 17.9 [10.2] and 17.7 [13.8] mm Hg; p <.024); and sleep quality (p <.05). NU showed significant improvements in percentages of total calories from fats and saturated fats relative to EX (p values <.01). Both groups reported improvements in psychological distress. Conclusions. Family caregivers can benefit from initiating a regular moderate-intensity exercise program in terms of reductions in stress-induced cardiovascular reactivity and improvements in rated sleep quality.

A Lifestyle Physical Activity Intervention for Caregivers of Persons With Alzheimer's Disease

“…12,14,16,17 We identified three major health promotion barriers: heavy caregiving and non-caregiving roles and responsibilities; CG concerns regarding their mental and physical health, and absence of support from others; and environmental concerns, which are similar to those commonly noted by others. 11,14,17 Given the number of barriers identified, more individualized attention and strategies for overcoming barriers need to be considered.…”

Barriers to and Facilitators of Physical Activity Program Use Among Older Adults

“…Recent intervention studies have suggested that incorporating regular PA into everyday routines may offer some of the same benefits for fitness and health as structured PA programs. 44,45 For this reason, health plans could provide coverage of PA programs, such as Active Living Every Day and Active Choices, which offer either group-based or one-on-one counseling to support PA through daily activities. 46,47 Study limitations include that our focus groups were primarily Caucasian and relatively well-educated.…”

Effects of remote feedback in home-based physical activity interventions for older adults: A systematic review

“…The non-frequent telephone contact group included five studies [35][36][37][38][39], two high-quality [35,36] and three low-quality [37][38][39]. The studies reported generally consistent findings, thus providing strong evidence.…”

“…In three studies the intervention group was compared with a control group that received care as usual, etc. Results show that programs using non-frequent contact were more effective in enhancing physical activity and capacity measures than usual-care or non-exercise control groups [35][36][37]. Two out of five studies compared programs with feedback to an exercising control group without feedback or exercise guidelines [38,39].…”

“…Adherence was addressed in 22 studies [7,10,11,20,21,[23][24][25][27][28][29]31,32,35,37,41,[43][44][45][46][47][48]. Details on adherence are shown in Table 2.…”