Over a 3-year observation period, the combination of aerobic exercises (such as walking), endurance, flexibility and balance, along with personalized nutritional counseling, reduced the risk of developing motor disability with loss of motion by 22%. autonomy in the elderly with physical frailty and decreased musculature (sarcopenia) residing in the community.
This is the main outcome of the SPRINTT study, a European project funded in 2014 by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI-Joint Undertaking). The results of the study were published in the British Medical Journal accompanied by an editorial by Thomas Gill, a professor at the Yale School of Medicine, which emphasizes its importance.
The study was conducted in 1,519 men and women (average age 79 years) with “physical frailty and reduced muscle mass-sarcopenia” recruited between 2016 and 2019 in 16 excellent geriatric clinical centers in 11 European countries (Iceland, France, Spain, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom and Italy). Three Italian centers participated: the Catholic University of Rome, the coordinating center, the INRCA of Ancona and the School of Specialization in Geriatrics-UO Geriatric Clinic of the University of Parma.
The multi-disciplinary team of Parma (Fulvio Lauretani, Giovanna Pelà, Sara Tagliaferri, Elisa Adorni, Yari Longobucco), coordinated by Marcello Maggio, professor of internal medicine and President of the master’s degree course in Medicine and Surgery of the University of Parma , enrolled 108 participants, half of whom underwent the combined physical activity intervention with technological support and nutrition and the remaining half participated in a course of seminars on healthy aging (controls).
The data obtained by SPRINTT acquire particular relevance in light of the progressive increase in the economic costs of motor disability in Europe and in Italy, where, according to the Istat report year 2019 (published in July 2021), elderly people with serious difficulties in basic activities of daily life (28% of the population over 65) are 3 million and 860 thousand and of them 2 million and 833 thousand have serious difficulties in walking or climbing or descending stairs without the help of a person or the use of aids.
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