LEISURE-TIME PHYSICAL ACTIVITY AS A PROTECTIVE FACTOR FOR FUNCTIONAL CAPACITY LOSS IN COMMUNITY DWELLING ELDERS

Objective: to analyze the association of leisure-time physical activity with the functional capacity of older people living in a large urban center in Brazil, controlling for sociodemographic, behavioral and health-related variables. Populational aging led to the emergence of chronic diseases, all potentially incapacitating, thus affecting functional capacity of elders. Despite health evidences in favour of having regular physical activity, the majority of elders are not sufficiently active. Baseline data of an urban elder cohort in Brazil showed that only 28% were active and 68% had some functional loss, a figure that went up to 73% among the inactives. FC was associated with a network of sociodemographic, health and behavioral factors. In a multivariate analysis, the inactives showed twice the odds of being severely dependent when compared to the actives. Noteworthy that inactivity is as a modifiable factor that might prevent FC loss. Longitudinal studies are needed to verify.