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Review
. 2023 Oct 2:454:114636.
doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2023.114636. Epub 2023 Aug 19.

A systematic review with meta-analysis of Yoga's contributions to neuropsychiatric aspects of aging

Bruna Verzili  1 , Marcel Valério de Arruda  2 , Flavio Herrmann  2 , Marcelo B Reyes  2 , Ruth F Galduróz  2
Affiliations
Review

A systematic review with meta-analysis of Yoga's contributions to neuropsychiatric aspects of aging

Bruna Verzili et al. Behav Brain Res. .

Abstract

Yoga is one of the most common Complementary and Alternative Medicines (CAM) for mind-body approaches to psychological and stress-related conditions in aging. Such wide usage demands the review and systematization of the scientific literature, searching for accumulated evidence of its effectiveness. We reviewed the literature to assess whether Yoga would offer significant improvements to neuropsychiatric aspects of the elderly: anxiety, depression, stress, memory and executive functions.

Methods: This systematic review with meta-analyses organized the results from all analyzed articles, comparing them between the experimental and either the control or waiting groups, calculating the effect size (Cohen-d) and the p-value of a two-tailed T-test. We presented the transformed metadata in forest graphs.

Results and discussion: Given the heterogeneity of methods, results, and effect sizes of each study and due to the number of articles found, this meta-analysis indicates that it is not possible to state that Yoga reduces anxiety and stress in the elderly or improves cognition. However, this meta-analysis found significant results of Yoga in reducing depression with small to medium effect sizes.

Conclusion: According to the currently available literature on Yoga and aspects of aging, we concluded that yoga was effective in most studies on reducing depression.

Keywords: Aging; Anxiety; Cognition; Depression; Elderly; Stress; Yoga.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests The Authors declare no Competing Financial or Non-Financial Interests.

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