Mapping Nordic Walking Research in Ageing-Related Populations: A Bibliometric and Topic Modeling Analysis (2006-2025)

Population ageing has increased the need for safe, accessible, and sustainable exercise strategies that support functional capacity, independence, and healthy ageing. Nordic walking has been examined across physiological, functional, clinical, and health-related contexts; however, previous research syntheses have generally focused on specific intervention effects, populations, or outcome categories, leaving the relationships among these research strands insufficiently understood. This study combined CiteSpace-based bibliometric analysis with Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling to examine the knowledge structure and thematic development of Nordic walking research in ageing-related populations from 2006 to 2025. A total of 263 publications indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection were included in the final analysis. The results showed that research activity was geographically concentrated, whereas institutional connections were relatively dispersed. Co-citation patterns linked the field with exercise science, rehabilitation, gerontology, gait analysis, and clinical health research. Keyword and temporal analyses indicated that research attention expanded from the physiological and biomechanical characterization of Nordic walking toward functional rehabilitation, chronic disease-related applications, and broader health outcomes. The seven LDA-derived topics reflected health-outcome evaluation, metabolic and cardiovascular indicators, functional rehabilitation, exercise physiology, cognitive health, body composition and muscle function, and gait-related rehabilitation. Rather than representing isolated research domains, these topics reveal an interconnected knowledge structure linking exercise-related mechanisms, functional and clinical outcomes, and broader ageing-related health concerns. Future research should improve intervention reporting, adopt population-specific outcome selection, and strengthen the linkage between exercise mechanisms and functional or health-related outcomes to support more comparable and cumulative evidence.