Physical exercise to improve or maintain activities of daily living performance in frail institutionalized older persons

This dissertation focuses on the ability of frail older persons, living in homes for the elderly, to stay as independent as possible. The quality of life in older adults depends for a great deal on whether they are dependent from care or not, and to what extent they are dependent. Care dependency is directly linked to ADL performance. Older people experience failure when they cannot look after themselves any longer, after a life of hard work and build up independence. From the view of a geriatric physiotherapist, optimalization of physical fitness characteristics like muscle strength, flexibility, aerobic endurance, coordination, and balance is the tool which may improve performance of activities of daily living (ADL).