Benefícios da prática de atividade física para a pessoa idosa

Abstract

The life expectancy of the population both Brazilian and world has changed over the years, especially after the fall of proven fertility and mortality, which made the process of population aging become one of the events of the century. Thus, it becomes necessary to consider the importance of having a more active aging and quality of life, providing health promotion practices early for the elderly. This paper aims to conduct a periodic review of the literature addressing the benefits of physical activity for the elderly, since aging is happening fast and it is necessary to face it with better quality of life. The literature review was made in consultation with the Virtual Health Library (VHL), using the Lilacs and Scielo as a database, where the research was done in the period 2000 to 2011, were also included some literature as important for the study. Through this work, it was possible to realize the benefits that have the practices of health promotion for the elderly, since this phase of life, many of the elderly are suffering from chronic diseases resulting from the continuous decrease of the function of organs and biological systems, so and need to maintain their functional ability so they can have greater independence, autonomy, improves muscle strength and social interaction, among others. Therefore, it can be said that these actions promote health, possible to minimize the dependency of the functional capacity, thus providing an aging and greater quality of life.