Effects of L ow I ntensity Resistance T raining on the R isk of F alls and F unctional A utonomy in the E lderly

The purpose of this study was to analyze the effects of resistance training on the functional autonomy and the risk of falls in 35 elderly (age range, 70 to 75 yrs) who underwent 3 months of training with 2 sessions times wk super(-1), 50 min times d super(-1). The Tinetti scale was used to assess the risk of falls and the Group of Latin American Development for the Maturity (GDLAM) protocol was used to evaluate the functional autonomy. The data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon test and Spearman correlation. We found that the median Tinetti scale improved from 23 to 25 after the intervention (P=0.002) and the median functional autonomy changed from 31.32 to 24.07 after training (P