Purpose: To examine the effect and feasibility of a 12-week programme of progressive resistance exercise on a group of nonagenarian (≥90 years) community-dwelling women.
Method: An A-B single-subject experimental design was applied. Visual analyses were used for estimating the effect of the intervention. Outcome measurements were: Timed Up and Go (TUG), comfortable walking speed and 30-s chair stands. The programme comprised four exercises, following the principle of overload, aiming at improving strength in the main muscle groups. Feasibility of the progressive resistance intervention was assessed by recording the recruitment of participants, adherence to the intervention and adverse events.
Results: Twenty-seven women were invited; eight women aged 90 and above agreed to participate and six completed the study. They suffered from one to 10 chronic medical conditions. All improved their performance in the TUG test. Five of the six participants achieved a higher walking speed (11-59%) and four of them improved on the 30-s chair-stand test with five to 10 stands. No major adverse events were reported.
Conclusion: Progressive resistance training was a safe and efficient method to enhance mobility and increase lower body strength in this heterogeneous group of nonagenarian community-dwelling women.
Implications for rehabilitation: Progressive resistance (PRT) training was found to be a safe and efficient method to enhance mobility and increase lower body strength in a group of community-dwelling women 90+. Participants with the poorest initial functional performance had great benefits, and the improvements appeared already after a few weeks of PRT. PRT might be useful in the rehabilitation field and could be implemented in facilities such as day care and senior centres frequented by very old persons with mobility limitations.
Keywords: Mobility; muscle strength; progressive resistance training; women.