Project

Efficacy of Exercise and Sports for Health Preservation of Middle-aged, Elderly and Disabled Persons

Summary

The rapid acceleration of a declining birthrate and aging population in Japan makes extending healthy life expectancy an urgent social issue which is being promoted via a variety of health promotion measures.

 

In order to shed light on effective ways to implement exercise and sport for the extension of healthy life expectancy, in this research, we conduct testing from multiple perspectives to verify the effectiveness of exercise and sports in preserving the health of middle-aged, elderly and disabled persons.

 

Specifically, we (1) clarify ways to implement exercise and sports that effectively preserve the health of middle-aged persons from the Longitudinal Survey of Middle-aged and Elderly Persons conducted by the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare while (2) verifying the physical and mental health of elderly and disabled persons engaged in sports activities and factors related to this implementation.

 

So far, we have clarified that exercise and sports are effective for middle-aged persons when performed in group settings, that elderly persons engaged in regular activities such as large-ball table tennis or skiing competitions have better mental and physical health as well as better physical fitness levels than their peers throughout the country, and that exercise and sports preserve and improve the mental health of visually impaired people.

 

Moving forward, we are conducting further detailed verification for development of effective programs to facilitate practice of simple exercise and sports in work or community peer group settings by middle-aged, elderly and disabled persons, as well as environmental improvement measures to this end.

 

Reference URLs

https://www.tsukuba.ac.jp/attention-research/p201510030300.html

https://www.tsukuba.ac.jp/attention-research/p201610281400.html

https://www.tsukuba.ac.jp/attention-research/p201609291700.html

Company

Public Health Promotion

Main member