Effects of exercise on improving sleep quality among elderly patients: A systematic review and meta-analysis / The Health Sciences Journal

ABSTRACT

INTRODUCTION@#Several studies on the effectiveness of exercise in improving sleep quality in the elderly have been done but have conficting results. This meta-analysis aimed to determine the effect of low- to moderate-intensity aerobic exercise in improving sleep quality among the elderly.@*METHODS@#EBSCO, ClinicalKey, PubMed, Wiley Online Library, and Cochrane Library were searched for articles using the terms “exercise AND sleep quality AND elderly”. The risk of bias assessment was done using the Cochrane Collaboration tool and encoded using RevMan 5.4. Data on outcome measures were subjected to meta-analysis using inverse variance methods.@*RESULTS@#Seven articles with a total of 225 participants were included. There was a statistically signifcant improvement in sleep quality with low to moderate intensity aerobic exercise (MD = -3.87 points; 95% CI -5.56, -2.19 points; p < 0.001). There was a statistically signifcant decrease in total sleep time after intervention (MD = -8.86; 95% CI -16.31, -1.41 points; p = 0.02). There was no improvement in sleep effciency.@*CONCLUSION@#Low and moderate intensity exercise improves sleep quality in the elderly and may be used as a non-pharmacologic intervention to enhance sleep quality.