Results
Initially, one hundred and ninety-one elderly people were invited to
participate of this study by telephone. 28 did not agree to participate,
and 32 subjects were excluded according to the eligibility criteria,
leaving 131 subjects. In sequence, the GIs with 65 participants and the
CG with 66 elderly people were composed. During the study there were
follow-up losses of 2 participants of the CG and 4 of the IG, and it was
concluded with 125 elderly according to the Consort flow diagram of
patient selection and allocation demonstrated a Figure 1.
The sample was predominantly female (88%); with mean age 68 ± 7 years;
anthropometric data indicative of pre-obesity, with a mean BMI of 27.3 ±
4; socioeconomic profile with low income preeminence (78% ≤ 2 SM) and
low schooling (76% ≤ 3 years of study); level of physical activity
considered active, with 87% of the elderly presenting
IPAQ> 150 minutes per week and mean TUG of 9 ± 2. Most of
them lived with their relatives (88%), not being smokers (91%), not
consuming beverages (88%) and had as their main self-reported
morbidities anxiety, arthrosis, hypertension, and diabetes. Table 1
presents the characteristics of the two groups, at the initial moment of
the study, with no statistically significant difference.
The average exercise frequency over the entire 12-week period was 4 ±
0.6 days per week, with a minimum of 3 days per week performed by 3
participants and a maximum of 6 days per week performed by 1
participant. All IG subjects had 100% adherence to the exercises and
there was no report on any type of injury related to the intervention
program developed. Figure 2 presents an analysis of the improvement in
functional mobility, by altering the TUG execution time between the
moments before and after the intervention, in each group, demonstrating
the improvement in mobility was statistically significant only in the
IG, changing from 9.1 ± 2 for 7.1 ± 1, with a mean reduction of 2 ± 1
seconds (p <0.01), compared with the CG who presented a change
from 9 ± 2 to 8.7 ± 2, reducing only 0.2 ± 0.7 (p = 0.7). In figure 3,
it can be seen the influence of home physical exercise on the QOL of the
elderly, by altering the global WHOQOL-OLD score between the moments
before and after the intervention, in each group studied. We can observe
that only the IG presented improvement in the QOL, with a variation of
the score of 85 ± 10 at the initial time of the study to 90.4 ± 9 after
application of the intervention, obtaining an increase of 5.4 ± 9.5
points (p <0.01) compared to the CG that varied from 84, 3 ±
10 for 83.7 ± 10, with a decrease of 0.6 ± 8.8 (p = 0.6). Table 2
presents the mean and standard deviation data for each of the 6 QOL
aspects of the WHOQOL-OLD, both before and after the intervention in
each of the studied groups, demonstrating that IG improved statistically
significant in the autonomy facets; present, past and future activities;
social participation and death and dying, with no significant
improvement in sensory functioning and intimacy being identified. CG did
not show significant improvement in any of the facets. Subgroup analysis
by means of ANOVA, performed in the IG, showed that the improvement in
QOL and functional mobility did not present a significant difference
when comparing the 60 to 69, 70 to 79 and ≥ 80 age groups, with
p> 0.05 for both analyzes.