Physical Exercises on Quality of Life of Old People Suffers Depression (Dissertation Sample)

THE IMPACT OF PHYSICAL EXERCISES ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF OLDER PEOPLE SUFFERING FROM DEPRESSION
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The Impact of Physical Exercises on Quality of Life of Older People Suffering from Depression
Section 1: Introduction
THE IMPACT OF PHYSICAL EXERCISES ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE OF OLDER PEOPLE SUFFERING FROM DEPRESSION following depressive symptoms. Through suffering from depression by the elderly people, it impairs the quality of life and increase the level of dependence on other people (Mura and Giovanni, 2013). In the last two decades, very few progresses have been made highlighting the effect of exercise on depression among the elderly and quality of life in aging process (Singh, Clements and Singh, 2001). The lack of efficacy on such researches is attributed to inadequate time to fully commit to research initiatives and deduce the needed results. However, the findings noted that with the continued use of antidepressants combined with physical exercises may help in treating depression, especially in advanced life stage. According to the report by World Health Organization 2017, despite the spirited efforts to curb depression from the elderly population, it still remains as one of the most challenging health problems in the recent times. In 2015 alone, the proportion of the total population with depression was estimated at 4.4 %. The prevalence significantly varies in relation to the WHO regions, from a low of 2.7 % for males in Western Pacific to 5.9 % for the females in the African regions. However, the rate of prevalence do vary by age, peaking in adults above 55-74 years by 7.5 for females and only 5.5% for females.
Physical exercise has been highly associated with the increased quality of life among the elderly suffering from depression. Recent research has indicated a sporadic increase in the aging population across the globe, especially in developing countries (Mucher et al 2021, p. 13799). It has been estimated that there will be an increased population of the elderly with increased chronic and age-related health problems in the next fifty years, including depression (McPherson and Hengartner, 2019, p. 11). Depression is associated with loss of interest, mood swings, and anhedonia, affecting the individual's mental, emotional, and physical wellness. The Global Burden of Disease has explained that depression is one of the leading non-fatal neuropsychiatric diseases and is projected to rise by 2030 exponentially (Ploughman et al 2020, p. 101919 ). With the increased cost of treating depression, there is a need for advocacy of preventive measures, including physical activity, in improving the quality of life (Jim and Kim, 2015, p. 6).
Depression has been highly associated with aging and has become a major concern for public health across global countries (Atkins et al 2013, p. 7). However, with this information in mind, there is a need for more research, particularly on the epidemiological studies on depression among the elderly, by considering the boundaries present between the symptoms of depression, depression itself, and the cognitive deterioration of healthy aging among this population (Voros et al 2020, p. 272). The World Health Organization (WHO) explains that depression increasingly lowers the quality of life (Murray et al. 2017, p. 129). Depression remains one of the most common health conditions affecting the elderly population across the globe. Global statistics indicate that over 150 million older adults across the globe are suffering from depression. Additionally, in a group of five older adults, at least one suffers from depression at least in their lifetime, thus having poor health status (Sertel et al 2017, p. 4167). While depression has overly been treated with different interventions, including psychological therapy and anti-depressants, there has been an increase in physical exercise as an alternative in reducing the impact and tendency of depression among the elderly population (Barkham et al. 2017 p. 259).
Quality of life is essentially one's beliefs and perspective on their level of living concerning the values and cultures that one may uphold or subscribe to about their goals, achievements, and life expectations (Coulton et al., 2015, p.251). In this sense, quality of life remains a huge concern for public health services and in developing a balanced and quality of life in respective economic indexes (Bankar, Chaudhari and Chaudhari, 2013). This brings to light the notion of quality-adjusted life years (QALY), which essentially estimates the quality years one may have lived. In contrast, the disability-adjusted life years (DALY) measure the quality of years that one loses due to a disability that deteriorates the quality of life one could have led. Quality of life is highly dependent on psychological, social, and physical factors. In this regard, increased depression as a health issue among the elderly promotes reduced quality of life (Trajkov et al 2018, p. 181). Depression may highly limit motor, cognitive, and emotional independence, thus leading to a dependency on other people in their daily activities (Jeong and Park 2020, p. 23378) Additionally, the disregard and a common concern for the disease also reduced the quality of life among the elderly (NICE, 2016).
However, the connection between depression among older people has remained unclear, with some studies providing evidence on the use of physical exercise in reducing depression tendency (Bankar et al 2013, p. 28). It should also be pointed out that there is a high cloud of uncertainty on the impact of physical exercise on depressed patients caused by the methodological perceptions and perspectives. This is partly promoted by the underrepresentation and participation of the elderly in clinical trials hence minimal assessments and evaluations (NGCH, USA, 2016, p. 7). Other studies have pointed out that physical exercise is one of the low-cost, effective mechanisms of reducing depression and improving the quality of life among the elderly (de Alancer et al 2019, p. 199). Physical exercise has musculoskeletal and cardiovascular benefits and promotes cognitive performance, improved motor control, self-dependency, and effectiveness, thus improving quality of life and functional capacity (López-Torres Hidalgo, 2019). However, this evidence is only applicable to people that exhibit the signs and symptoms of depression (Wassink-Vossen et al. 2014, p. 69). Minimal research has been conducted on the elderly who have undergone a clinical diagnosis of depression (Li et al 2014, p. 59). However, even though there is minimal research and literature on the quality of life and depression among older people, previous literature indicates that the quality of life affects the result of the studies (Scherrer et al 2019, p. 129). Additionally, most of the literature has overly generalized depression among adults. Therefore, the quality of life and physical exercise has to be evaluated and measured in an older population with depression (Cassidy et al., 2016).
Physical exercise can reduce the negative impact of health-related to aging. Despite the increased campaign and recommendation on the elderly engaging in physical exercise to reduce symptoms related to depression, the latter's intensity and frequency have been increasingly low (Gouw et al 2019, p. 103378). Physical exercise remains a highly recommended intervention in most chronic illnesses as it highly influences mortality and morbidity. In the context of inadequate prioritization of mental wellness due to inadequate services and interventions that target the old population, there is a need to focus on physical exercise as the primary preventive measure, especially in global countries with the increasing growth of the adult population (Rosenbaum et al. 2014, p. 178). The majority of the studies of the effectiveness of physical activity in improving the quality of physical exercise have been developed in western countries compared to the developing global countries (Schega et al 2013, p. 321). This has been influenced by the socio-economic gap, leisure, employment, and retirement benefits, and the practical understanding of the association and connection between physical activity and mental wellness (Knapen et al., 2015, p. 1491).
Section 2: Design
The design utilized in the study was the systematic review which incorporated the controlled and randomized studies and literature on the effect of physical exercise on the quality of life of older people with depression. The systematic review included the controlled and randomized trials with elderly patients who have been diagnosed with depression in addition to analysis of the physical exercise and its association to measuring the quality of life among this population. The systematic review included any trial involving physical exercise as an intervention mechanism for depression in the targeted population, older people above the age of 65 years. Since we did not have the resources for translation, sources that were not published in English were excluded from the study.
Search methods
The databases searched included Pubmed, Google Scholar CINAHL, and PsycINFO. These databases have been selected because they have scholarly articles on health care issues, including depression. The need for a review of previously published literature is to obtain in-depth information to be used as evidence for implementing the educational program. The search terms used included physical activity, physical exercise, depression, older people, or elderly or geriatric. The search terms were combined using Boolean operators, namely AND and OR, AND was us...