INTRODUCTION. Aging is a risk factor for most chronic diseases, and the presence of more than two diseases (i.e., multimorbidity), which is frequent in almost two out of three older adults, has been related to an increased risk of disability and frailty, a decrease in quality of life, and mortality. Physical activity (PA) acts as a nonpharmacological intervention and regular physical activity (rPA) reduces rates of all-cause mortality, compresses morbidity, decreases healthcare costs, and has relatively minimal adverse effects compared to drugs. It has been estimated that 27.5% of the world's population in 2016 did not meet the recommendations established for the member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) for health-enhancing physical activity. Furthermore, recent studies showed that moderate-intensity physical activity may be sufficient for reducing the risk of all-cause dementia and that some of the protective benefits of physical activity for older adults. It seems indispensable to study adequate doses of exercise for older people who often have low levels of physical activity and fitness, who spend a large amount of time sitting down, and whose multimorbidity keeps them away from exercising.
OBJECTIVE: To study the effects of perception-regulated low-volume and low-to-moderate intensity training on body composition, hemodynamic parameters, and functional performance in older adults with multimorbidity.
MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study is a 2 x 2 randomized controlled trial using a two-group design (exercise vs. control) and two repeated measures (pre- vs. postintervention). The exercise group is requested to accomplish on the MOTOmed Muvi, a low volume (i.e., 20 minutes, 3 days per week) and low-to-moderate intensity combining upper and lower limb recumbent cycling training for six weeks. Participants are evaluated to examine the changes in body composition, functional performance, and resting cardiovascular state. Furthermore, participants are monitored physiologically during each session (HR and blood pressure) to control any possible adverse effects. Participants are recruited at the Gerontological Complex La Milagrosa (A Coruña, Spain), consisting of a daycare center and a nursing home. 24 participants will be recruited and randomly placed into two groups: the exercise group (EG, n=12) and the control group (CG, n=12). A stratified permuted block randomization is employed that accounted for the GDS score, sex, and type of institutionalization.
DATA ANALYSIS AND STATISTICS: Data will be presented as the median and interquartile range for ordinal variables and the estimated marginal mean ± standard deviation (SD) for continuous variables. The effect of the intervention will be analyzed employing nparLD (nonparametric analysis of longitudinal data in factorial experiments) from the R software package. Changes within and between groups will be analyzed by employing mixed models for repeated measures designs with the module GAMLj, which uses the R formulation of random effects as implemented by the lme4 R package in Jamovi software.
