Just 25 minutes of activity a day can help seniors avoid the dangerous syndrome
A relatively small amount of moderate physical activity, such as walking, will help the elderly not become weakened.If an elderly person is already weakened by illness, bed rest only makes them weaker. A new study has found that just 25 minutes of walking a day makes a big difference.
An international team of researchers led by scientists from the University of Seville in Spain wanted to determine how much exercise is needed to avoid post-hospitalization syndrome.
During a hospital stay, patients receive life-saving treatment. But it's hard on physical and mental health due to poor sleep, the effects of medication, prolonged bed rest and immobility. Regardless of how successful the treatment was, the most dangerous period after discharge remains. Previous studies have shown that about 20 percent of older Americans resume their hospital stay within 30 days - precisely because of hospitalization syndrome.
For the review, researchers tested data from 19 studies involving 3,783 patients (55% of whom were women) between the ages of 55 and 87. On average, they stayed in hospital for seven days and were observed 68 days after discharge. All of them were able to move without assistance.
It turned out that a minimum of 25 minutes a day of moderate physical activity or 40 minutes of gentler exercise helped older adults avoid post-hospitalization syndrome and not become debilitated. The optimal doses were about 50 and 70 minutes of physical activity, respectively.
An article about the study was recently published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.