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REVIEW article

Front. Physiol.
Sec. Exercise Physiology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fphys.2024.1427038

Evolution of Documents Related to the Influence of Physical Activity and Functional Capacity Throughout the Aging Pro-cess: A Bibliometric Review

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 Departamento de Desporto e Saúde, Escola de Saúde e Desenvolvimento Humano, University of Evora, Évora, Portugal
  • 2 Comprehensive Health Research Centre, University of Evora, Évora, Portugal
  • 3 Escola Superior de Educação, Instituto Politecnico de Setubal (IPS), Setúbal, Portugal
  • 4 Sport Physical Activity and Health Research and Innovation Center, College of Education of Coimbra, Rio Maior, Portugal
  • 5 Group of Optimization of the Training and the Sport Performance, University of Extremadura, Cáceres, Extremadura, Spain
  • 6 Faculty of Health Sciences, Francisco de Vitoria University, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain
  • 7 Doctorate Program in Education and Technology, Distance University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain
  • 8 Centre for Life Quality Research, Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Leiria, Leiria, Portugal
  • 9 Interdisciplinary Center for Human Performance, Faculty of Human Motricity, University of Lisbon, Dafundo, Portugal

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Physical inactivity can lead to frailty and negative health outcomes in middle-aged to older adults. Sedentary individuals have double the risk of death compared to those who engage in high levels of physical activity (PA). The advantages of practicing PA in older age are significant, with regular, moderate-intensity activity (150 minutes per week)being consistently linked with a decreased risk of chronic disease, cognitive decline, and mortality. Therefore, the study aimed to carry out a bibliometric review related to the terms "Physical activity", "Functional capacity" and "Aging" including all the documents published in the Web of Science Core Collection until 31st December 2023. The sample was made up of 231 studies related to the topic. The results reported that the first document was published in 1994. However, there was no continuity in the publication of the documents till 1998, which was the first year with at least one document published. Considering 1998 as the first year, it is observed an exponential growth of 77.4%, be-tween the oldest (1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008) and contemporaneous studies (2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014)(2015)(2016)(2017)(2018)(2019)(2020)(2021)(2022)(2023), in which "Geriatric Gerontology" was the Web of Science category with the highest number of documents (n = 59). The journal "Experimental Gerontology" was associated with the largest number of published documents (n = 7), being indexed in Quartil 2. The years 2009 had the highest number of citations (n = 1811), with a total of 7 documents published and 2018 with the higher number of documents (n = 25). These results reported the importance of PA in elderly people, and how it influences the risk of falls, improving the balance Evolution of Documents Related to the

    Keywords: Sedentary Lifestyle, Elderly, trend, Co-authorship, journals

    Received: 03 May 2024; Accepted: 17 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Cabo, Hernández-Beltrán, Gamonales, Fernandes, Espada and Parraça. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Carolina Cabo, Departamento de Desporto e Saúde, Escola de Saúde e Desenvolvimento Humano, University of Evora, Évora, Portugal
    José Parraça, Departamento de Desporto e Saúde, Escola de Saúde e Desenvolvimento Humano, University of Evora, Évora, Portugal

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.