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Age and Ageing Advance Access originally published online on April 19, 2006
Age and Ageing 2006 35(4):388-393; doi:10.1093/ageing/afl006
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© The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Tai Chi versus brisk walking in elderly women

Joseph F. Audette1, Young Soo Jin2, Renee Newcomer3, Lauren Stein4, Gillian Duncan5 and Walter R. Frontera1

1 Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Department of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation, Harvard Medical School, 125 Nashua Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA
2 Department of Sports Medicine, University of Ulsan, College of Medicine, Asan Medical Center, 388-1 Pungnap-2dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, Korea
3 Department of Exercise and Sport Science, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27402, USA
4 Department of Radiology, Maimonides Medical Center, 4802 Tenth Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11219, USA
5 Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, College of Physicians & Surgeons, Columbia University, 710 W. 168th Street, New York, NY 10032, USA

Address correspondence to: J. F. Audette. Tel: (+1) 781 391 7518. Fax: (+1) 781 391 1030. Email: jaudette{at}partners.org

Purpose: to compare the effects of a short style of Tai Chi versus brisk walking training programme on aerobic capacity, heart rate variability (HRV), strength, flexibility, balance, psychological status and quality of life in elderly women.

Methods: nineteen community-dwelling, sedentary women (aged 71.4 ± 4.5 years) were randomly assigned to Tai Chi Chuan (TCC; n = 11) or brisk walking group (BWG; n = 8). A separate group of elderly women was recruited from the same population to act as a sedentary comparison group (SCG; n = 8). The exercise groups met for 1 h, three days per week for 12 weeks. Outcomes measured before and after training included estimated VO2max, spectral analysis of HRV (high-frequency, low-frequency power as well as high- and low-frequency power in normalised units) as a measure of autonomic control of the heart, isometric knee extension and handgrip muscle strength, single-leg stance time, the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Profile of Mood States (POMS) and Short Form-36 (SF-36) questionnaires.

Results: significant improvement was seen in estimated VO2max in the TCC group (TCC versus SCG P = 0.003, TCC versus BWG P = 0.08). The mean within-person change of high-frequency power in normalised units (HFnu) increased [8.2 (0.14–16.3)], representing increased parasympathetic activity, and low-frequency power in normalised units (LFnu) decreased [–8.7 (–16.8–0.5)], representing decreased sympathetic activity, in the TCC group only. Significant gains were also seen in the non-dominant knee extensor strength and single-leg stance time (TCC versus BWG P<0.05).

Conclusions: a short style of TCC was found to be an effective way to improve many fitness measures in elderly women over a 3-month period. TCC was also found to be significantly better than brisk walking in enhancing certain measures of fitness including lower extremity strength, balance and flexibility.

Keywords: aged, physical fitness, rehabilitation, Tai Chi, elderly


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