Objective:
To identify physical activity behaviors of older (>/=60 years) women with rheumatoid arthritis, and to determine if physical activity behavior differed by demographic characteristics or disease duration.
Methods:
Cognitively intact, ambulatory women with rheumatoid arthritis seen at an urban university arthritis center (n = 185) responded to a survey that included demographics, number of years since ra diagnosis, and physical activity assessed with the yale physical activity survey.
Results:
Participants had a mean age of 70 years and a mean disease duration of 17.6 years. mean total of physical activity, including low-, moderate-, and high-intensity activity, was 23 hours/week, with 47 different physical activities identified. housework comprised 67% of total physical activity time, whereas leisure activities and planned exercise comprised only 15% and 10%, respectively. sixty percent of the women reported participation in some type of vigorous activity, and 88% reported they had done leisure walking in the past month. age was negatively associated with scores on the activity summary index (r = -0.195, p < 0.01), and there was a significant difference on the activity summary index by employment status, with women in the work force (n = 47) and those involved in housekeeping (n = 105) scoring significantly higher (p = 0.003) than the women (n = 33) who described themselves as retired (f = 7.81, 2 degrees of freedom, p = 0.001).
Conclusion:
Older women with rheumatoid arthritis may participate in a broader array of physical activities than previously assumed, and could benefit from increasing the proportion of moderate or vigorous activity incorporated into their daily routines.