Effects of physical exercise on cardiovascular risk and quality of life in hypertensive elderly people

Abstract

The scope of this article is to evaluate the effects of a mixed protocol of physical exercises on cardiovascular risk (CVR), quality of life and the presence of depressive symptoms in elderly hypertensive patients. It involved a lon-gitudinal, prospective and quasi-experimental study with 48 elderly individuals. A physical exercise protocol was developed for 16 weeks accord-ing to American College of Sports Medicine, and anthropometric variables (weight, height, body mass index and waist circumference), as well as biochemical variables (total cholesterol, LDL-c, HDL-c; triglycerides) were evaluated. The mean age was 66.5±4.8 years. The frequent CVR factors were dyslipidemia (58.3%) and sedentary lifestyle (45.8%). After intervention, there was a reduction in mean values of total and LDL-cholesterol and increased HDL-cholesterol levels. The CVR and global risk score decreased significantly. The fre-quency of depressive symptoms decreased from 25% to 4.2%. An improvement was observed in SF-36 physical, health and vitality domains. The mixed protocol of physical exercises constituted a possible low cost and effective alternative in the improvement of the lipid profile and the quality of life related to the health of the elderly who partic-ipated in this research.