Elderly Dementia Patients Can Benefit from Online Chair Yoga

In socially isolated older persons with dementia, online chair yoga may help both physical and psychological symptoms, according to a recent study.

Dementia involves declining physical function in addition to cognitive deterioration. It is important to adopt non-pharmacological treatments that are secure, efficient, and supported by research to address this significant source of limitation in daily living activities in older persons with dementia. Yoga in a chair is one such method.

Chair yoga: What is it?

Chair yoga is a non-invasive, low-impact intervention that includes breathing, relaxation, mindfulness training, flexibility, balance, and strength training while being practiced either sitting or standing with the assistance of a chair.

Sadly, obstacles including a lack of transportation, living in rural regions, relying on caretakers, and notably the COVID-19 pandemic have kept many elderly people with dementia from taking part in chair yoga programs that are held in person and are group-based. Due to their burdens, folks who cannot travel to a community center need a creative solution to receive a chair yoga intervention.

“Many patients may find it burdensome to travel to in-person yoga sessions over a period of weeks,” said Juyoung Park, Ph.D., senior author, principal investigator, and professor at Florida Atlantic University’s College of Social Work and Criminal Justice’s Phyllis and Harvey Sandler School of Social Work.

In a groundbreaking interdisciplinary study, researchers from FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine, Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, and College of Social Work and Criminal Justice, along with collaborators, evaluated a chair yoga intervention for older adults with dementia that was remotely supervised online and measured clinical outcomes virtually via Zoom. The study examined the connection between chair yoga and the clinical outcomes of pain interference, mobility, risk of falling, sleep disturbance, autonomic reactivity, and loneliness. It also evaluated the practicality of this intervention.

Why Online Chair Yoga is Beneficial for Dementia-Affected Seniors?

Based on retention (70 percent) and adherence (87.5 percent), without injury or other negative events, the study’s findings—which were published in the journal Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice—showed that remotely supervised online chair yoga is a workable approach for managing physical and psychological symptoms in socially isolated older adults with dementia.

“This discovery is noteworthy, as older persons with dementia and their carers may face difficulties in trying to attend chair yoga programs at community facilities,” said Park, who collaborated on the study with FAU medical student and mentee Hannah Levine. Because it was simple to access from home and didn’t require getting dressed or taking a car, our telehealth-based chair yoga intervention was reported to be convenient for both participants and their caregivers, which decreased caregiver load and stress.

For eight weeks, participants in the pilot trial attended twice-weekly 60-minute sessions. The yoga interventionist was highlighted on the Zoom screen during the chair yoga session so that participants could only see the interventionist. Participants may concentrate on the yoga sessions without being distracted by other people on the screen because to the spotlighting.

“Our study participants practiced breathing methods, purposeful practice, physical postures, guided relaxation, and visualization with a certified yoga interventionist and their carers,” stated Park.

To preserve social ties while remaining physically apart, participants communicated on Zoom with the facilitator or with other participants. Psychosocial and physiological (i.e., cardiac) data were obtained remotely at baseline, mid-intervention, and post-intervention.

According to Mara de Los Angeles Ortega Hernández, DNP, APRN, GNP-BC, PMHNP-BC, CDP, FAANP, FAAN, director of the FAU Louis and Anne Green Memory and Wellness Center, Associate Dean of Clinical Practice, and professor at the FAU Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, remotely collected cardiac and psychosocial data can offer a more thorough assessment of an intervention’s effects. Importantly, doing chair yoga courses online gives those who can’t get to a clinic or institution access to therapies, which helps reduce health inequities.

The study’s main objective was to determine whether executing a remotely supervised, home-based, online chair intervention and completing outcome measures digitally was feasible (in terms of retention, adherence, and safety). The investigation of the connection between the intervention and persistent pain, bodily function, or psychological symptoms was the secondary goal. An exploratory goal was to assess how simple and effective it was for participants and caregivers to remotely collect cardiac data for offline assessments of how the intervention affected parasympathetic control and total heart rate.

According to Lisa Ann Kirk Wiese, Ph.D., co-author and Associate Professor at the FAU Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing, “an important feature of our technology-based intervention is that it could allow socially isolated older adults with dementia who are living at home, especially those in underserved communities where people are becoming more digitally connected, to receive remotely supervised chair yoga that provides physical, social, and psychological benefits.”