Social participation is associated with better functionality, health status and educational level in elderly women A participação social está associada a melhor funcionalidade, estado de saúde e nível educacional em mulheres idosas

La participación social es definida como la integración de las personas a actividades de la comunidad en grupos sociales voluntarios u obligatorios, formales e informales, lo cual podría tener consecuencias en la salud de la población adulta mayor. Fue realizada una búsqueda en Pubmed, Scielo, Scopus y Google Scholar. Para esta revisión se analizaron 16 artículos que estudiaban el impacto de la participación social en adultos mayores, incluyendo un total de 73 698 096 individuos de Norteamérica, Asia, Europa, y América latina. La participación social es considerada como un factor protector para la salud mental y física de los adultos mayores, la cual ha sido asociada a disminuciones de la discapacidad, comorbilidades y mortalidad. Por esta razón, se sugiere que debe ser evaluada en la práctica clínica. Esto permitiría orientar y derivar a los adultos mayores a participar de determinadas organizaciones comunitarias, principalmente aquellos que no tienen redes de apoyo, que no están vinculados a grupos comunitarios, que tienen síntomas de depresión o que están iniciando un cuadro de deterioro físico o cognitivo. De este modo, la salud pública podría aumentar sus acciones de prevención y promoción de la salud por medio de las organizaciones comunitarias. Por otro lado, la falta de instrumentos y consensos para evaluar la participación social fue discutida en esta revisión donde se ha propuesto un cuestionario de evaluación de la participación social del adulto mayor que debe ser validado y estudiado en el futuro.

Functional exercise circuit reduce the metabolic risk factor in older people in three months of training Circuito de exercício funcional reduz o fator de risco metabólico em idosos em três meses de treinamento

Background Sarcopenia is a disease associated with different functional and biological factors related to the aging process. Preventing sarcopenia is important because this disease is associated with increased risk of frailty, falls, fractures, hospitalization, and mortality in older adults. Physical exercise has been the most used intervention for the prevention and treatment of sarcopenia. However, most of the exercise interventions have focused on strength training and nutritional supplementation, targeting the intervention for sarcopenia as a problem related only to muscle mass and strength. However, sarcopenia is a multidimensional condition with negative impacts on functional status. Dual-task training is effective in increasing different functional variables such as balance and gait speed. Nevertheless, there are few studies focused on the effect of this intervention on clinical and biological variables related to sarcopenia. For this reason, the objective of this study was to analyze the effects of dual-task training on clinical and biological measurements of sarcopenia in non-sarcopenic older adults. Methods 48 older adults were included in this study. Fat-free mass, fat mass, calf circunference, handgrip strenght, 5-repetition sit-to stand, 4-meter gait speed, six-minute walking test and oxidative stress blood biomakers were evaluated. Individuals were allocated into one of these two groups: dual-task training (experimental group) and simple-task training (control group) for 12 weeks, 3 times a week, 50 minutes each session. Student's t test, Mann-Whitney test, and ANCOVA, with adjustment for baseline were used. Cohen's effect size was calculated. Results Dual-task training increased the fat-free mass and calf circunference, and reduced the fat mass (Cohen's effect size from 0.4 to 1.0; p < 0.05 for all). Both groups showed improvement in 5-repetition sit-to stand, 4-meter gait speed, six-minute walking test (Cohen's effect size from 0.5 to 1.0; p < 0.05 for all). All the antioxidant biomakers (glutathione transferase, catalase, total plasma antioxidant potential and sulfhydryl grouping) increased after dual-task training (Cohen's effect size from 0.4 to 1.0; p < 0.05 for all). Conclusion Dual-task training improved muscle mass, muscle strenght and physical performance, which are the clinical measurements of sarcopenia. Additionally, this intervention also increased the antioxidant capacity in healthy older adults.