University of Saskatchewan, Department of Economics & SPHERU, 9 Campus Drive, Saskatoon SK S7N 5A5, Canada.
Maturitas. 2011 Nov;70(3):285-9. doi: 10.1016/j.maturitas.2011.08.004. Epub 2011 Sep 15.
The impacts of exercise and physical activity on healthcare utilization of older adults have been studied using either (1) clinical trials or retrospective cohort studies focusing on older people who participated in various exercise intervention programs, or (2) survey data. This review focuses on both streams of studies, which cover the topic for adults aged 65 and older. The paper reviews the literature on physical activity and its implications for healthcare system, and discusses potential directions for future research by highlighting the limitations of the existing studies. Although there are significant variations in samples and methods used, both streams of reviewed literature provide evidence that physical activity leads to lower utilization of healthcare services. Given differences in methods and samples in these studies, estimated effect of physical activity on healthcare utilization shows significant variation from one study to another. These results, therefore, cannot be generalized to justify population wide exercise intervention programs for older adults. Additional studies are needed to provide more robust estimates for the effects of exercise, and to examine the feasibility of population wide policies that aim to encourage participation of older adults in physical activity.
运动和身体活动对老年人医疗保健利用的影响，已经通过以下两种方式进行了研究：（1）临床试验或回顾性队列研究，重点关注参与各种锻炼干预计划的老年人；或（2）调查数据。本综述重点关注这两种研究方法，涵盖了 65 岁及以上成年人的相关主题。本文综述了关于身体活动及其对医疗保健系统影响的文献，并通过突出现有研究的局限性，讨论了未来研究的潜在方向。尽管样本和使用的方法存在显著差异，但这两种研究方法都提供了证据表明，身体活动可降低医疗保健服务的利用。鉴于这些研究在方法和样本上的差异，身体活动对医疗保健利用的估计效果在一项研究到另一项研究中存在显著差异。因此，这些结果不能推广到证明针对老年人的全民运动干预计划的合理性。需要进一步的研究来提供更有力的运动效果估计，并研究旨在鼓励老年人参与身体活动的全民政策的可行性。
