The Effectiveness of Aerobic Rhythmic Exercise with Music on Selective Attention, Depression and Anxiety in Older Men

Due to the ever growing population of the elderly, improving their psychological characteristics such as depression, anxiety and selective attention seems to be necessary. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of eight-week aerobic rhythmic exercise along with music on depression, anxiety and selective attention in the elderly men in Ardebil, Iran. The current research was a quasi-experimental of pretest-posttest and control group design. Selected through convenience and voluntary sampling methods were Twenty eight participants with an average age of 67 (SD=5.59) who were assigned randomly into experimental (n=12) and control (n=12) groups. Study tools included Beck's Depression, Beck's anxiety and Strop’s selective attention questionnaires. It was experimental group for whom Aerobic training along with music were presented in eight one-hour sessions, 3 sessions a week. Data were analyzed through SPSS-22 using Covariance Analyze. Results indicated that all three variables including selective attention (P<0.001), depression (P=0.02), and anxiety (P<0.001) the experimental group had a significant improvement in the post-test compared to the pre-test, although this was not the case for the control group (P>0.05). According to the findings, it can be concluded that Aerobic is expected to improve selective attention through creating harmony and combining movements and performance. Besides, the combination of Aerobic and music seems to be effective on decreasing depression and anxiety.