Aging association to the evaluation of the physical capacity in institutionalized old people of both gender
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Recognising the benefits of regular physical exercise among aged people, the importance of knowing the factors that influence the participation of that population in the physical activity relies on the possibility of improving the intervention accuracy, the kinds of offer and activities. This way and bearing in mind the importance that physical activity assumes in life quality and activity performances, it is crucial to determine the levels of physical capacity, which is taken as one of the objectives of the physical activity, either at physical and physiological levels: to increase the physical capacity through the development, strength, resistance, flexibility, coordination and balance, as a way to overpass accurately and effortlessly the “challenges” of the daily activities, as well as diminishing the probability of the development of some degenerative chronic diseases. The aim of this current study was to assess the levels of Physical Capacity of aged individuals from both sexes, living in care homes and establishing a comparison with ageing. Methods: The sample is composed by institutionalized aged people, from care homes with ages from 68 to 96 (82,85±7,06). The women group (WG) was 18 subjects and the men group (MG) was 18 subjects too. We evaluated Body Mass Index (BMI) and to assess the physical capacity parameters we used the battery of tests developed by Rikli and Jones (1999). The test items included: chair stand test (assess lower-body strength); arm curl test (measure upper-body strength); 6-minute walk test (assess aerobic endurance); chair sit-and-reach test [assess lower-body (primarily hamstring) flexibility]; back scratch test [assess upper-body (shoulder) flexibility]; and 8 feet up-and-go test (assess agility and dynamic balance). The used statistical procedures were the descriptive statistics (mean, standard deviation and frequency distribution), presentation of the higher and minimal values in relation to the variables dependent on sex. And the inferential statistics (non-parametric tests for independent samples and U Mann Whitney). Results: The following results have shown that in average statistics significance was found in BMI (p <0,004). In Rikly and Jones battery tests, no statistics significance was found in every test. Conclusion: The levels of physical capacity that the aged people from the sample show are very low nevertheless the male genre presents higher values in every tests, with the exception of those which assess the flexibility of the upper-body and lower-body.
