Effect of Aerobic Training on Exercise Capacity and Quality of Life in Middle Aged Obese Fishermen:a Comparative Study

Abstract

Background: Fishermen have risk conditions like obesity due to high amount of food intake and relatively

sedentary work type.Overweight and obesity are defined as abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may

impair health and reduce functional exercise capacity and Quality of life.In this study effort is taken to find

optimal physiotherapy intervention for middle aged obese fishermen.

Method: 72 Subjects participated for study.2 of them did not come for the follow up.Remaining 70 subjects

which were screened for 6MWD and SF36 scores and were put in either of the two groups.Group A received

Free active exercises and Group B received Aerobic training.Interventions were carried out for a period of 6

weeks(3 times / week).The post treatment improvement was noted with the outcome measures.

Results: The results showed very significant difference between the groups on 6MWD,Group

B(experimental)showing better improvement than Group A(Control).(p=0.0047).Also extremely significant

difference(p>0.0001)was noted on all the 8 domains of SF36 within both the groups and no significant

difference between the groups post intervention.

Conclusion:We found that Aerobic training showed better effect on exercise capacity in middle aged

obese fishermen.And Quality of life improved significantly with Aerobic training and also with Free active

exercises.