Exercise type and activities of daily living disability in older women: An 8‐year population‐based cohort study

BACKGROUND: Exercise may reduce the risk of disability for activities of daily living (ADL), but the degree of associations between specific exercise types and such a risk remains unclear. This study aimed to examine the longitudinal associations between exercise types and the incidence of ADL disability in older women. METHODS: This 8-year population-based prospective cohort study enrolled 1003 community-dwelling older Japanese women without ADL disability in the baseline surveys. In the baseline surveys, all participants were asked whether or not they participated in any of 16 exercise types through a face-to-face interview. ADL were assessed using a modified form of the Katz index that comprised five ADL tasks. ADL disability was defined as dependence in at least one ADL task during the 8-year follow-up period. Binary logistic regression analyses were applied to obtain adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confident intervals (CIs) for the incidence of ADL disability based on participation or non-participation in each exercise type. RESULTS: Activities of daily living disability was noted in 130 participants (13.0%) over the 8-year follow-up period. After adjustment for confounders and other exercise types, participation in dancing, compared to non-participation, was associated with a significantly lower OR (0.27; 95% CI: 0.09-0.75) for incident ADL disability. There were no significant associations between other exercise types and incident ADL disability. CONCLUSION: Dancing was significantly and independently associated with a lower incidence of ADL disability. Thus, dancing may solely contribute to a reduced risk of ADL disability in older women.