Department of Health and Kinesiology, University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA.
Department of Health and Sports Sciences, Chukyo University, Toyota, Japan.
BMC Geriatr. 2024 Jul 10;24(1):590. doi: 10.1186/s12877-024-05187-8.
Square-Stepping Exercise (SSE) is a type of physical-cognitive exercise. Such exercise has been used as an exercise approach in different studies with older adults. This scoping review provides an overview of the protocols and outcomes of studies employing the SSE in older adults.
We searched in the PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, CABI Global Health, and Web of Science databases for articles published between 2006 (first research article published on SSE) to December 2023 that met a robust inclusion criterion. The search yielded 424 articles, and after inclusion criteria being applied, 37 articles were included in the final analysis.
A total of 37 studies were included in the final analysis. Thirty-three out of the 37 studies focused on apparently healthy older adults, while four were conducted with older adults with neurological disease (i.e., multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease, and stroke). Most studies (n = 25) adopted an experiment (i.e., randomized controlled trial) or quasi-experimental approach, while 12 were classified as non-randomized (i.e., cross-sectional, mixed methods). The studies were conducted in different parts of the globe and adopted three major formats of intervention delivery, namely in-person, online, and home-based. Frequency, SSE session duration and intervention length significantly varied among studies, and reported outcomes were in the domains of physical and cognitive function.
This review comprehensively described the characteristics of 37 studies employing SSE in apparently healthy older adults and older adults with neurological diseases. The findings demonstrated that SSE has been used by researchers across the globe, adopting a variety of forms of delivery, and to particularly improve physical and cognitive function of different segments of the older adult population. The review further identified important gaps in research, including the restricted outcomes, and the lack of studies combining SSE with more traditional exercise modalities to address potential combinatory effects.
方步走运动（SSE）是一种身体认知运动。这种运动已被用于不同研究中老年人的运动方法。本综述概述了在老年人中使用 SSE 的研究方案和结果。
我们在 PubMed、CINAHL、Scopus、CABI Global Health 和 Web of Science 数据库中搜索了 2006 年（首次发表 SSE 研究文章）至 2023 年 12 月期间发表的文章，符合严格的纳入标准。搜索结果为 424 篇文章，在应用纳入标准后，有 37 篇文章纳入最终分析。
共有 37 项研究纳入最终分析。37 项研究中有 33 项专注于明显健康的老年人，而 4 项是针对患有神经疾病的老年人（即多发性硬化症、帕金森病和中风）进行的。大多数研究（n=25）采用实验（即随机对照试验）或准实验方法，而 12 项被归类为非随机（即横断面、混合方法）。这些研究在全球不同地区进行，采用了三种主要的干预交付格式，即面对面、在线和家庭。研究之间的频率、SSE 会议持续时间和干预长度差异显著，报告的结果在身体和认知功能领域。
本综述全面描述了在明显健康的老年人和患有神经疾病的老年人中使用 SSE 的 37 项研究的特征。研究结果表明，SSE 已被全球研究人员使用，采用了多种交付形式，特别旨在改善不同年龄段老年人的身体和认知功能。该综述进一步确定了研究中的重要差距，包括受限的结果，以及缺乏将 SSE 与更传统的运动方式相结合以解决潜在组合效应的研究。
