Background: Aging and age-related health problems are major issues of concern for community health services. Yoga is an exercise with both physiological and psychological effects on aging. Although many studies have assessed the effectiveness of yoga in the elderly, little information is available in the literature to support empirical conclusions.
Purpose: This review synthesizes and characterizes findings related to the effects of yoga on depression and quality of sleep in the elderly.
Methods: Researchers used keywords including yoga, elderly, aged / older adult, depression, sleep, and quality to search 6 electronic databases for relevant studies published prior to March 2013. Inclusion and exclusion criteria were used to screen identified study abstracts. The Jadad scale appraised the quality of identified studies.
Results: Seven studies met the inclusion criteria. Five studies found significant changes in participant depression symptoms after doing yoga. Three studies found significant effects on the quality of sleep of participants after 6 months of doing yoga.
Conclusion: Yoga significantly reduced the depressive symptoms of elderly participants and improved their quality of sleep after 6 months. Findings were similar for elderly living in institutions and in the community. However, the majority of participants in the assessed studies were women characterized by a high level of social participation and proactive participation in health promotion activities. Future studies should broaden the scope of research to address different aging populations and use long-term cohort observations in order to better elicit the effectiveness of yoga and to develop strategies to introduce yoga into daily activities.
Title: 瑜珈於老年人憂鬱及睡眠品質之系統性文獻回顧
背景: 老年健康議題，隨人口老化逐年上升而倍備受重視。瑜珈對促進老年健康之身心運動，雖有多位學者曾探討老年人執行瑜珈的成效，但文獻中鮮少提供具體實證性結論。
目的: 本文經由系統性文獻回顧，整合及探討瑜珈運用於老年人憂鬱及睡眠品質之成效。
方法: 搜尋六個中英文資料庫，使用關鍵字瑜珈（yoga）、老年人（elderly, aged, or older adult）、憂鬱（depression）、睡眠品質（sleep and quality）進行搜尋，時間至2013年3月前，於摘要為根據篩選納入及排除條件，並以modified Jadad score評定文獻品質。
結果: 最後納入七篇文獻，其中有五篇文獻顯示在執行瑜珈後老年人的憂鬱症狀有顯著改善；三篇測量睡眠品質文獻，顯示瑜珈課程六個月後睡眠品質達到顯著改善。
結論: 不論居住於機構或社區的老人，其憂鬱症狀及睡眠品質在執行六個月瑜珈後皆有顯著性改善。但由於受試者大多為女性、社會參與度高及具有健康促進的觀念者，建議未來可針對不同族群老年人進行探討，此外，亦建議進行世代研究，長期觀察瑜珈者的身心狀態，藉以了解瑜珈應用於老年人之效益，使老年人能將運動與日常生活結合。
Keywords: depression; elderly; quality of sleep; yoga.