A perspective on Water Properties and Aquatic Exercise for Older Adults: Water Properties and Aquatic Exercise for Older Adults

Abstract

• Aging causes undesirable physiological changes and incline physical function. Older adults have more limited ability for exercising while they are greatly eager to do exercise and sustain their physical health and fitness. The knowledge about unique properties of water will assist to provide proper exercise media and as well as designing rehabilitation programs for older adults or people who have limitation to exercise inland. In that, the purpose of this study is to understand the assistance of temperature, buoyancy, hydrostatic pressure and viscosity of water which made the aquatic exercise more effective than land-based exercise for this population. The physical properties of water can significantly reflect static weight-bearing which resulted in upgrading the speed of movement like walking/running inside water. Meanwhile, a perspective of the effect of aquatic exercise on pain level, flexibility, cardiovascular fitness and balance are reviewed. The synthesis of relevant literature revealed that an appropriate aquatic exercise program can effortlessly improve quality of life and support physical health outcomes in older adults particularly in the fifth and sixth decades of life. At that point, although the limitation and physical and mental difficulty among this population should be cautionary considered, they are typically able to do exercise in the water with less joint stress and minimal difficulty.