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Review
. 2024 Jan;13(1):13-17.
doi: 10.1016/j.jshs.2023.10.007.

Older Adult Compendium of Physical Activities: Energy costs of human activities in adults aged 60 and older

Erik A Willis  1 , Stephen D Herrmann  2 , Mary Hastert  2 , Chelsea L Kracht  3 , Tiago V Barreira  4 , John M Schuna Jr  5 , Zhenghua Cai  6 , Minghui Quan  6 , Scott A Conger  7 , Wendy J Brown  8 , Barbara E Ainsworth  9
Affiliations
Review

Older Adult Compendium of Physical Activities: Energy costs of human activities in adults aged 60 and older

Erik A Willis et al. J Sport Health Sci. 2024 Jan.

Abstract

Purpose: To describe the development of a Compendium for estimating the energy costs of activities in adults ≥60 years (OA Compendium).

Methods: Physical activities (PAs) and their metabolic equivalent of task (MET) values were obtained from a systematic search of studies published in 4 sport and exercise databases (PubMed, Embase, SPORTDiscus (EBSCOhost), and Scopus) and a review of articles included in the 2011 Adult Compendium that measured PA in older adults. MET values were computed as the oxygen cost (VO2, mL/kg/min) during PA divided by 2.7 mL/kg/min (MET60+) to account for the lower resting metabolic rate in older adults.

Results: We identified 68 articles and extracted energy expenditure data on 427 PAs. From these, we derived 99 unique Specific Activity codes with corresponding MET60+ values for older adults. We developed a website to present the OA Compendium MET60+ values: https://pacompendium.com.

Conclusion: The OA Compendium uses data collected from adults ≥60 years for more accurate estimation of the energy cost of PAs in older adults. It is an accessible resource that will allow researchers, educators, and practitioners to find MET60+ values for older adults for use in PA research and practice.

Keywords: Energy expenditure; Exercise; MET; Older adults.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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