A comparative study of pulmonary and anthropometric parameters between physically active elderly women and sedentary women

OBJECTIVE: Comparison of the anthropometric and pulmonary function between elderly women who attend a hydrotherapy program and sedentary elderly women. METHODS: An observational, field and cross-sectional study has been done with elderly women (n=23) between 60 and 75 years old, they were divided in two groups: G1 (hydrotherapy elderly women practitioners) and G2 (sedentary elderly), the following variables were used: socio-demographic characteristics (age, marital status and labor activity exercised), pulmonary function data (thoracic mobility, respiratory pressures, peak expiratory flow, and smoking), anthropometric measurements (body mass index, skinfold triceps, arm muscle circumference and waist/hip ratio) and the modified Baecke physical activity questionnaire for elderly people. It has been performed a descriptive analysis of the data through SPSS obtaining the mean and standard deviation of all variables. The variables normality was checked by the Shapiro-Wilk test and the homogeneity by Levene's test. In order to evaluate the differences, we used the nonparametric Mann-Whitney test with significance level of p<0.05. RESULTS: Significant difference between both groups (p<0.05) in peak expiratory flow variables and in the total score of the Baecke questionnaire. CONCLUSION: The water activity held once a week was not able to create significant differences in all anthropometrics and pulmonary parameters in elderly women.