25 mins/day walking enough to counter physical impact of bedrest among elderly

As little as 25 minutes a day of slow walking seems to be enough to counter the detrimental physical effects of bedrest on older hospital patients, finds a pooled data analysis of the available evidence, published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

And for optimal improvements in physical function, around 50 mins/day of slow walking or around 40 mins of combined physical activities, such as 20 mins of resistance bands with around 20 mins of aerobic activity, are the most effective, the analysis indicates.

Recently published research indicates that getting older hospital patients out of bed and moving about can help ward off physical decline, but it’s not clear what type of activity, or how much of it, might be most effective. In a bid to find out, the researchers looked for published clinical trials that involved people over the age of 50 who had been admitted to the hospital for a serious bout of illness and prescribed any form of physical activity during their inpatient stay.

They included only those trials that involved a comparison group receiving usual care or another type of physical activity; that assessed changes in functional capacity—the ability to perform routine activities of daily living, for example—and that recorded any adverse consequences, at discharge or at any subsequent monitoring point. The final analysis included 3783 participants.

Pooling the trial results showed that the minimal ‘dose’ required to counter the effects of bedrest and improve older inpatients’ functional capacity was estimated to be around 40 mins/day of light-intensity physical activity or around 25 mins/day of moderate-intensity physical activity.

Reference: Optimal dose and type of physical activity to improve functional capacity and minimize adverse events in acutely hospitalized older adults: a systematic review with dose-response network meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials, British Journal of Sports Medicine, DOI 10.1136/bjsports-2023-106409