Quality of Life: Effects of Physical Activity in an Anthropometric, Cognitive and Psychosocial Background, and Variation of Odontoiatric Parameters

Abstract

The "Quality of Life" project arises from the need to observe and define the existing interconnection between a "healthy" lifestyle and the quality of life perceived by people. Starting from the W.H.O. (World Health Organization) definitions of quality of life and health, and analyzing the studies that describe the benefits of both movement physical and mental, a protocol three months has been set for the pursuit of a diet and personalized training. For this purpose, 20 healthy subjects from the 1st year of the Physiotherapy degree, who had never practiced sports at an agonistic level, have been recruited. All individuals were subject to initial evaluations to define psycho-physical wellbeing, then they have been divided into two groups: the first group, defined as experimental, followed the protocol for the duration of the study, while the second, was only subject to evaluation. At the end of the three months period, the subjects of both groups were evaluated twice, the first immediately after the last training session, the second was evaluated one month from the latter. The final evaluation aimed at verifying a possible conservative effect on modification of experimental group parameters, even when physical activity and nutrition were not supervised by us. The ultimate goal of the project was to specifically analyze, after three months, the changes in cognitive memory capacity and concentration, the stress experienced in work or study, and psycho-physical wellbeing perceived by the concerned subjects. Data collected during the three evaluations showed that, in the experimental group, as our scientific protocol has altered all these parameters in terms of quality of life in positive terms, modifications are susceptible to changes in the event that physical activity and proper nutrition are not followed.