Abstract
The present study aims to determine the effects of rehabilitation sports on the physical performance levels and functional skills of elderly individuals. This study involved 354 individuals aged between 60 and 89 years, 183 (99 females and 84 males) in experiment group and 171 (94 females and 77 males) in control group. During the study, 45-min. rehabilitation sports program was performed once every week for 50 weeks and Senior Fitness Test comprised of 6 different test parameters and measuring muscle power, dynamic balance, endurance, and skills was conducted. Pretest and posttest were applied in order to evaluate and compare the physical performance improvements. The normality analysis was performed using skewness and kurtosis coefficients of data. Since the data showed normal distribution, the difference between groups was determined using independent sample t-test, whereas dependent sample t-test was used for determining the intragroup difference between pretest and posttest. One-way variance analysis was used for determining the age groups’ compliance with standard norm values. Comparisons were performed setting the statistical significance at p<0.05. At the end of the present study, it was determined that 50-week Rehabilitation Sports Program was found to have positive effect on leg force, arm force, flexibility, endurance, and skills of elderly individuals. In experiment and control groups, performance decrease was observed with advancing age. Moreover, it was also found that men were stronger, faster, and more enduring than women. The results obtained here provided significant tips for the physical performance evaluations of elderly people and indicate that advancing age has negative effects on the physical performance. For this reason, integration of physical activity into daily life in elderliness would positively contribute to achieving norm values in physical performance.