Effects of exercise on the sleep quality of elderly persons with sleep disorders: A meta-analysis / 中华物理医学与康复杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To evaluate the effect of exercise on the sleep quality of elderly persons experiencing a sleep disorder so as to provide an evidentiary basis for future studies.Methods:Reports of randomized and controlled trials of the effects of exercise on sleep quality among elderly persons with sleep disorders were extracted from the Cochrane library, PubMed, EMbase, the Web of Science, CNKI and other databases. Reports from the database′s inception to August 28, 2019 were retrieved. All were screened applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, and their methodological quality was evaluated using the Cochrane bias risk tool. The combined effect was analyzed using version 5.0 of the ReMan software.Results:Nine reports covering 928 patients were identified. Meta-analysis showed that compared with the control group, exercise could significantly improve the overall sleep quality of elderly patients with sleep disorders in terms of sleep score, subjective sleep quality, sleep latency, sleep duration, sleep efficiency, degree of sleep disturbance, sleep medication use, and daytime functioning.Conclusion:Exercise can improve the overall sleep quality of patients with a sleep disorder, shortening the sleep latency, improving sleep efficiency, reducing the use of sleep drugs, and improving their daytime functioning. However, it has less effect on subjective evaluations of sleep quality and sleep disorder.