This study aimed to investigate the interaction between sarcopenic obesity and locomotive and nonlocomotive physical activity (PA) on the risk of depressive symptoms in community-dwelling older Japanese women. Participants were 143 community-dwelling older women aged 64-94 years. PA was measured using a three-axis accelerometer. Participants were classified according to two levels of total, locomotive, and nonlocomotive PA. Depressive symptoms were assessed by a self-administered survey consisting of the 15-item Japanese version of the Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15-J). The interaction between sarcopenic obesity groups and total or locomotive PA did not affect GDS-15-J scores. However, the interaction between sarcopenic obesity groups and nonlocomotive PA significantly affected GDS-15-J scores (p < .05). Moreover, sarcopenic obesity in the low PA group had significantly higher GDS-15-J scores compared with sarcopenic obesity in the high PA group (p < .05). We concluded that sarcopenic obesity combined with low nonlocomotive PA may exacerbate depressive symptoms in older women.
Keywords: locomotive physical activity; older women; three-axis accelerometer.