The Effectiveness of An Active Aging Program for the Elderly
Date Issued
2016
Date
2016
Author(s)
Su, Wei-Ting
Abstract
The population of elderly increased rapidly around the world. Taiwan has become an aging society in 1993. Council for Economic Planning and Development estimates that Taiwan will become an aged society in 2018. In order to practice the concept of active aging, Federation for the Welfare of the Elderly started a program called “Aging and Healthy Center” since 2013. The study collected participants’ data who attended the program on July 2013 to June 2015 in this program. There were 159 people included in the analysis. Data analysis methods included descriptive statistics, pair t test, Chi-square test and stratified analysis. The purposes of this study are to describe participant’s characteristics, to examine the effectiveness of this active aging intervention program, and to explore related factors that influence the effects of active aging program. The results showed that the characteristics of the participants, including average age 71.14, female, currently married, living with others, junior or high school graduate, satisfied with their economic status, well self-rated health status, suffered from one to several kinds of diseases (average=2.08), non-frail, normal cognitive function, no depression, exercise more than ninety minutes in the past week, normal in physical fitness test, one to two times social interactive per week, and lower degree of class involvement. After attending active aging program, all of the physical conditions (frailty, physical fitness test, frequency of exercise), depressive symptoms, cognitive function and social interactive frequency were improved. There was a significant improvement for chair stand test and frequency of exercise. The result showed a significant difference between class involvement degree and physical conditions (frailty, physical fitness test, frequency of exercise), depressive symptoms, cognitive function, and frequency of social interactive. In addition, there was significant difference between frailty and original frailty status. Depression, cognitive function and social interactive frequency were significant difference with original depression status. After controlling the original frailty status or original depression status, the higher class involvement degree, the more improvement of physical conditions (frailty, physical fitness test, frequency of exercise), depressive symptoms and social interactive frequency. The result of the program showed a positive effectiveness of active aging program. We believe that we can maintain the health of the elderly and delay the time or the degree of disability by using this active aging program. It is a significant way to reduce the burden of aging in our country. Some concrete suggestions are proposed based on the above conclusions as a reference for internships, government, and future researches of making active aging programs and health policies. Multiple data were incomplete and the number of samples were decreased due to the systematic data collection and the quality control of assessment had not well-established at the beginning of the program which affects the quality of research. We should implement the program with a stable and complete foundation to build a complete database to maximize the benefits of this plan.
Subjects
the elders
active aging
active aging program
effectiveness
Type
thesis
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