Pain and physical activity changes during the COVID-19 state of emergency among Japanese adults aged 40 years or older

Abstract

Understanding the relationship between pain and physical activity (PA) levels is beneficial for maintaining good health status. However, the impact of pain on changes in PA during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine whether PA levels pre-, during, and post-COVID-19 state of emergency differ between Japanese adults who had pain after the COVID-19 state of emergency and those who did not.Data were collected from a cross-sectional online survey conducted between October 19 and 28, 2020. The analytic sample consisted of 1967 Japanese adults aged ≥40 years who completed the online survey. Participants completed questionnaires on the presence of pain and duration of PA, defined as the total PA time per week based on activity frequency and time. Participants were asked to report their PA at 3 time points: October 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic), April 2020 (during the COVID-19 state of emergency), and October 2020 (after the COVID-19 state of emergency).Among participants aged ≥60 years who reported pain in October 2020, the total PA time was significantly lower than participants who did not report having pain. Furthermore, the total PA time in April 2020 was significantly lower than that in October 2019; however, no significant difference in total PA time was observed between April and October 2020. Among participants aged 40 to 59 years, no significant differences were observed in total PA times at the 3 time points between those with and without pain. In addition, the total PA time in October 2020 significantly increased compared to that in April 2020, although it significantly decreased in April 2020 compared to October 2019.This study suggests that older adults with pain have lower PA levels after the COVID-19 state of emergency.

The impact of COVID-19 quarantine on physical activities in Basra, Iraq: A cross-sectional study

“…These results confirmed that the age of participants did not play a large role in changing peoples' activity patterns during the quarantine. These results appeared to be consistent with those obtained in another study where the researchers reported that there were no large differences among participants with different ages in total activity times before and during the quarantine (20). For the education level variable, although the changes in the percentage of participants did not exceed 5% before and during the quarantine for both groups, the general trend was toward a decrease in the number of people who engaged in physical activities for 4 days per week or more.…”

A Scoping Review of the Changes in Physical Activity and Sedentary Behaviour and its Health Outcomes among Adults in Asia during the COVID-19 Outbreak

“…A total of 35 (29.5%) studies have examined PA among these groups. Of these, 18 studies reported total PA level have decreased among patients with or without chronic disease(s) (40,43,65,91,123,131,134), diabetes patients (39,86,99,135), COVID-19 patients (21,124,123), heart failure patients (17), multiple sclerosis patients (64), orthopedic patients (118), and adults with pain (55,136). When stratifying across the PA intensity, one study among postmenopausal women had lower levels of PA (68), three other studies reported low MVPA among adults with or without the chronic disease (66) and COVID-19 patients (62,75), and one study reported a decrease in LMVPA among adults with or without the chronic disease (127).…”

A bibliometric analysis of COVID-19 and physical activity

“…The team represented by SMITH L [11][12][13][14] focused on changes in adults' physical activity levels and mental health during COVID-19 confinement, whereas SEKULIC D's team [15,16] focused on the effects of different environmental factors on adolescents' physical activity during confinement. MAKIZAKO H's team [17][18][19][20][21] studied changes in physical activity, pain management, sleep quality, and health in older people affected by the pandemic. At the same time, the author's collaboration network diagram also shows that there was little collaboration between different research teams due to differences in geography and institutions.…”