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Published on: July 5, 2017
Advanced age, tobacco use, insufficient physical activity, and high sedentary behavior associated with lower limb
Júlia Perfeito Andrade1, Maria Clara Alves de Oliveira1, Ana Carolina Souza Porto1
1Health Science Complex, State University of Tocantins, 77960000, Augustinópolis, Tocantins, Brazil.
Objective:
To investigate the factors associated with lower limb (LL) muscle weakness in older adults residing in a small municipality in Northeastern Brazil.
Methods:
This population-based, cross-sectional epidemiological study included 194 older adults. Independent variables included socioeconomic, behavioral, and health-related factors. The outcome was defined by poor performance on the 30-second chair stand test. Poisson regression with robust variance was used to estimate Prevalence Ratios (PR) and corresponding 95 % Confidence Intervals (CI).
Results:
The prevalence of LL muscle weakness was 30.40 %. A higher probability of LL muscle weakness was observed among individuals of advanced age (PR: 1.05; 95 % CI: 1.021.07), those who reported smoking (PR: 2.31; 95 % CI: 1.23-4.42), were insufficiently active (PR: 1.98; 95 % CI: 1.13-3.46), or exhibited high sedentary behavior (PR: 1.72; 95 % CI: 1.08-2.72).
Conclusion:
Advanced age, insufficient physical activity, high sedentary behavior, and tobacco use were positively associated with LL muscle weakness in the study population.
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