Yoga For Older Adults

Getting older, peoples bodies begin to break down from use over the years. Things begin to change. Balance or lack thereof comes to our attention, strength begins to weaken, among the many other physical changes that occur naturally as people age. With all these changes happening exercising seems to be a rational way to help maintain or at least help slow down these changes and how they affect people. There is one form of exercise that is great for all ages and sizes. Yoga, which has been around for a very long time, but it is only recently becoming popular in the U.S. Yoga in Sanskrit means “union of the self with the divine,” and one of the objectives in yoga is to integrate the body and mind. There are so many benefits that yoga has, such …show more content…
“Even within the elderly population, people over 80years of age are increasing rapidly, posing demands on the health-care services in the coming years” (Woodyard, 2011). Which is why the idea of yoga for older adults sounds like the perfect match. Yoga has the potential to help older adults transition into the changes their bodies and minds go through due to age, but there isn’t enough evidence to suggest if it is substantial enough. “Over one third of people aged 65 years and older fall one or more times every year” (Tiedemann, O'Rourke, Sesto & Sherrington, 2013). The journal titled, Effects of yoga intervention on sleep and quality-of-life in elderly: A randomized controlled trial, talks about how they conducted a blind study focused on …show more content…
The study consisted of 120 participants, 60 years of age or older, randomly selected from nine different senior homes. The participants were split up into two different groups; one called the yoga group, with 62 participants and the other group called the waitlist, with 58 participants. The yoga group was given a yoga program that was only an hour a day for one full month, then the next two months they were to continue their yoga practice for the same amount of time with supervision. After the 3rd month there was no more supervision for the participants but they were to keep practicing yoga for the last 3 months, making it a 6 month total study. The waitlist group was not given the yoga program during the study, to be considered the control group. Participants were given the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL)-BREF to measure the quality of life or QOL, then the participants were given the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index for measuring sleep quality, which both surveys were given at the start of the study as well as at the end (Hariprasad, et al., 2013). Sleeping difficulties