Analysis of Effect of the Community Based Physical Fitness Program for the Aged in an Isolated Island, Japan -An Application of the "Active Centenarian Physical Fitness Program (Iki-iki hyaku-sai Taiso)"-

In order to test the usefulness of non-machine based physical fitness program, so called "Active centenarian physical fitness program", the authors have applied this program in an isolated island of Kagoshima. The participants were the 18 slightly frail elderly more than 65 years old (4 males and 14 females). The average age was 78.17 ± 4.18 years old (min: 71, max: 85 years old). The main exercises continues about 30 minutes composing of: (1) Raises arms to back (2) Raises arms to sideways (3) Bending and extending knees (4) Standing up from chair (5) Extending knees (6) Raising legs to back (7) Raising legs to horizontal. After the 12 weeks intervention, improvement was observed for most of the physical fitness tests. So far as lifestyle, mental status and IADL were concerned, there were improvement observed in social role, intellectual activeness, outdoor activity, and hobby activity. Compared with the machine-based physical fitness program, the Active centenarian physical fitness program has more merits for application in the community setting, i.e. cheaper cost, easiness to master, safer physical activity.