Exercises and Quality of Sleep among Elderly

Abstract

A quasi experimental pretest – posttest study was done to evaluate whether three different types of exercises – walking, stretching and a combination of walking and stretching exercises made any significant difference in quality of sleep of elderly people from selected old age homes, Kerala. From four different old age homes 100 subjects were selected by simple random sampling, and assigned 25 subjects each to three experimental groups and control group. Experimental group I was taught walking exercises; group II stretching exercises and group III a combination of walking and stretching exercises and made them to practice the exercises 5 days a week for 20 minutes for one month. Data was collected using modified Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scale by interview technique. The analytical findings revealed that the overall sleep quality was poor in all the groups before the intervention and after the intervention 76 – 80% subjects in the experimental groups got good quality of sleep while no change was observed in control group. The mean overall sleep quality score of experimental groups markedly improved from 14.44 to 5.52 after the intervention which indicated good overall quality of sleep, meanwhile the control group mean sleep scores remained the same. This study concluded that walking and stretching exercises had a great impact on the quality of sleep of elderly in old age homes. So it is recommended that some form of exercise or physical activity can improve quality of sleep in elderly.