Impact of yoga and cognitive-behavioral therapy on worried elderly people

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Created On: 18/11/2022

In a randomized preference trial, the long-term benefits of yoga and cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) over the phone on pain, social participation, physical function, sleep, anxiety, worry, depressive symptoms, and fatigue were compared. The study also looked at preference and selection effects.

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Key take away

In older adults, both cognitive-behavioral therapy and yoga displayed sustained improvements in depressive symptoms, worry, anxiety, social participation, sleep, and fatigue six months following intervention completion.

Background

Method

Overall, 500 elderly people > 60 years of age were randomly assigned to either a preference experiment (selected yoga or CBT; n = 250) or a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of yoga or CBT (n = 250). At baseline and Week 37, outcomes such as PROMIS-29 (pain, social participation, physical function, fatigue, depression), Generalized Anxiety Disorder Screener (generalized anxiety), PROMIS Anxiety Short Form v1.0 (anxiety), Insomnia Severity Index (sleep), and Penn State Worry Questionnaire - Abbreviated (worry) were evaluated.

Result

Participants in the CBT and yoga RCT showed long-lasting improvements from baseline in exhaustion, depressive symptoms, sleep, anxiety, worry and social involvement (no major between-group differences) six months after the end of the intervention. There were no notable preference or selection effects when the data from the randomized and preference trials were pooled. For the majority of the research outcomes, long-term intervention benefits were seen at clinically significant levels.

Conclusion

Community-dwelling older adults who had received CBT and yoga both showed sustained enhancements relative to baseline on multiple outcomes after six months.