# Examining the association of physical activity and mortality among recently hospitalized older adults with dementia

## TL;DR

The study explores whether physical activity after hospital discharge affects mortality in older adults with dementia, finding a notable trend but no statistical significance due to a small sample size.

## Contribution

The novel contribution is examining physical activity's impact on mortality specifically in recently hospitalized older adults with dementia.

## Key findings

- Physical activity levels one month post-discharge were not statistically significantly associated with mortality within one year.
- A strong trend was observed, suggesting potential benefits of physical activity in this population.
- The results emphasize the need for larger studies to confirm the observed trend.

## Abstract

This study aimed to examine the association between physical activity one month post discharge and mortality over the first-year post discharge among recently hospitalized older adults with dementia.

For this descriptive sub-study, among 42 participants, we obtained physical activity data via accelerometry at one month post discharge and death status via phone call at 6 months and 1 year post discharge. We performed logistic regression.

We found that participants’ amount of time spent in physical activity one month post hospital discharge was not statistically significantly associated with mortality within the first-year post hospital discharge (OR=.996, CI=.992,1.000; p=.053). However, we did observe a strong trend.

Given the small sample of participants, this trend is salient and should be examined in a larger sample. The results highlight a specific patient profile, recently hospitalized older adults with dementia, that would greatly benefit from physical activity interventions.