Healthy Lifestyle Status among Non- Institutionalized Older People: A Literature Review

Introduction: Advances in medical and health sciences have led to increase in the number of older people. The most common non- communicable diseases can be prevented by following a healthy lifestyle. This study aimed to investigate the lifestyle of elderly people by reviewing the literatures and background of the previous researches in order to obtain a holistic view about lifestyle. Methods: A fast literature review was conducted applying retrospective approach to identify the status of lifestyle among older people. For this purpose, the related references with keywords involving 'lifestyle', 'elderly people', 'aging', and 'multiple chronic conditions' were electronically searched in databases ‘All Academic’, ‘ISI web of knowledge’, ‘PsycNET’, ‘Social Sciences Citation Index’, and ‘PubMed’ from 2002 to 2015. Results: 26 related articles were finalised and reviewed according to the study aims. The results showed that those people with an inappropriate lifestyle were more likely to die because of health difficulty reasons. Improving healthy lifestyle including dietary habits, weight control, physical activity, smoking cessation, managing stressful life events, and social capital were closely related with reduced risk of all-cause mortality. Conclusion: It seems that the awareness about the relationship between healthy lifestyle and incidence of multiple chronic conditions among older people may be effective in understanding of the potential health consequences of their performance, and also in modifying lifestyle.