Physical Activity, Mental Health, and Wellbeing among Older Adults in South and Southeast Asia: A Scoping Review

Table 2

General overview of non-interventional studies ().

S.no.	Title and date	Objective(s) of the study	Population characteristics	Mental health and wellbeing measures	Key findings
(1)	Regular exercise and depressive symptoms in community-dwelling elders in Northern Taiwan [1] 2016	To examine the association between regular exercise and depressive symptoms in community-dwelling older adults in Taiwan.	The study participants were older adults aged 65 years and above, living in northern Taiwan. The community-dwelling older adults were selected using probability-proportional-to-size procedure. One thousand and twenty individuals completed the questionnaires.	Center for epidemiological studies depression scale (CES-D) was used to measure degree of depression symptoms.	Regular exercise was the only factor significantly related to a lack of depressive symptoms, both for male and female older adults.
(2)	Depression and its association with functional status and physical activity in the elderly in Karachi, Pakistan [17] 2015	To determine the functional status and level of physical activty and their association with depression in the elderly population.	The study participants were older adults aged 60 years and above living in Karachi, Pakistan. Nine hundred and fifty three individuals were selected using mult-stage cluster sampling in Karachi, Pakistan.	Depression was assessed by the 15-item geriatric depression scale.	Male older adults were more physically active than female counterparts. Participants spending more than 310 min (>5.2 h) per week in physical activity were 60% less likely to be depressed compared to those who spent less than 120 min (<2 h) per week. Strong association was observed between depression and time spent in physical activity.
(3)	Physical activity and depressive symptoms in older adults: 11-year follow-up [18] 2011	To examine the reciprocal associations between changes in physical activity and depressive symptoms among older adults.	The analyses in this study were based on the data from the Taiwan’s health and living status of the elderly survey collected in 1996, 1999, 2003 and 2007. Data representing a cohort of 1160 senior adults aged 67 years and above in 1996 were studies with 11 years of follow-up.	The 10-item Chinese version of original 20-item centre for epidemiologic studies-depression scale was used to assess symptoms of depression.	Levels of physical activity were negatively associated with changes in depressive symptoms () while early depressive symptoms were not related to changes in physical activity ()
(4)	The relationship between exercise participation and wellbeing of the retired elderly [8] 2011	To identifiy the relationship between physical exercise and the feelings of wellbeing among retired senior adults.	Quota sampling method was adopted to choose the respondents in this face-to-face survey. Three hundred and fifty two questionnaires were collected from selected parks in Taipei, Taiwan for analysis.	The general wellbeing (GWB) schedule developed by Dupuy was used to measure the wellbeing of the participants.	Exercise frequency had a significant positive effect on wellbeing and three dimensions of depression; positive wellbeing and vitality. A negative correlation was observed between wellbeing and exercise intensity. The older adults felt more comfortable and gained more pleasure psychologically while participating in less intensive exercise.
(5)	The health benefits following regular ongoing exercise lifestyle in independent community-dwelling older Taiwanese adults [5] 2010	To examine the effect of regular ongoing exercise lifestyle on mental and physical health.	One hundred and ninety seven older adults aged 60 years and above were recruited in this prospective longitudinal follow-up study. Measurements were made at baseline and in a 2-year follow-up assessment. The participants in this Taiwanese study were selected from local community centres.	Chinese version of the mini-mental status examination (C-MMSE) and a Chinese version of the geriatric depression scale (C-GDS) were used to assess mental health.	Regular exercise group were less depressed () and tended to regress less on the performance tests (= 0.025–0.410) across 2 years compared to the irregular exercise group.