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. 2013 Mar;42(2):222-9.
doi: 10.1093/ageing/afs160. Epub 2012 Oct 31.

Objective measurements of daily physical activity patterns and sedentary behaviour in older adults: Age, Gene/Environment Susceptibility-Reykjavik Study

Nanna Yr Arnardottir  1 , Annemarie Koster, Dane R Van Domelen, Robert J Brychta, Paolo Caserotti, Gudny Eiriksdottir, Johanna Eyrun Sverrisdottir, Lenore J Launer, Vilmundur Gudnason, Erlingur Johannsson, Tamara B Harris, Kong Y Chen, Thorarinn Sveinsson
Affiliations

Objective measurements of daily physical activity patterns and sedentary behaviour in older adults: Age, Gene/Environment Susceptibility-Reykjavik Study

Nanna Yr Arnardottir et al. Age Ageing. 2013 Mar.

Abstract

Background: objectively measured population physical activity (PA) data from older persons is lacking. The aim of this study was to describe free-living PA patterns and sedentary behaviours in Icelandic older men and women using accelerometer.

Methods: from April 2009 to June 2010, 579 AGESII-study participants aged 73-98 years wore an accelerometer (Actigraph GT3X) at the right hip for one complete week in the free-living settings.

Results: in all subjects, sedentary time was the largest component of the total wear time, 75%, followed by low-light PA, 21%. Moderate-vigorous PA (MVPA) was <1%. Men had slightly higher average total PA (counts × day(-1)) than women. The women spent more time in low-light PA but less time in sedentary PA and MVPA compared with men (P < 0.001). In persons <75 years of age, 60% of men and 34% of women had at least one bout ≥10 min of MVPA, which decreased with age, with only 25% of men and 9% of women 85 years and older reaching this.

Conclusion: sedentary time is high in this Icelandic cohort, which has high life-expectancy and is living north of 60° northern latitude.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Proportion (SEp) of subjects with more than one MVPA10+ bouts by age groups and gender (n = 579; men = 221, women = 358) and by BMI categories and gender (n = 577; men = 220, women = 357).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Distribution of PA between day hexiles (4 h periods) for different age groups and sexes. Beside a significant difference in PA between different day hexiles (P < 0.001), ANOVA for repeated measures (on square root transformed data) showed significant interactions of the within-day distribution of PA with both gender (P < 0.001) and age groups (P < 0.001); three-way interactions were non-significant (P = 0.65).
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