Abstract

Background: the aquatic activities practiced by adult women, are not always complemented with weight-bearing activities, although these prevent and improve osteoporosis, which is an illness frequently suffered within the postmenopausal period. Objectives: to know if the studied women: are in the menopausal period, suffer from osteoporosis, practice exercises out of pool and are aware of the benefits produced by weight-bearing exercises complementing aquatic activities in order to prevent and improve osteoporosis. Material and methods: a descriptive study of prevalence. 149 adult women which practice aquatic activities in 7 pools from Seville were surveyed. The parameters assessed were basically those showed on the objectives. Results: 135 (90.6 %) women were menopausal; 43 (28,9 %) suffered from osteoporosis and 22 (14.8 %) did not know it; 43 (28.9 %) only practice aquatic activities; 88 (59.1 %) were not aware of the relevance of load exercises for osteoporosis. To practice weight-bearing activities (x2 (2, 149)= 0.070, p = 0.966) and to be aware of their benefits (x2 (2, 149) = 1.675, p = 0.433), are not related to suffering from osteoporosis. Conclusions: programs of aquatic physical activities are not enough in order to improve osteoporosis. Hardly a third of the women which attend pools to practice aquatic activities are postmenopausal and suffer from osteoporosis. In addition, these exercises are practiced by a third of women, so programs should include some load activities too. The majority of women which attend aquatic activities are not conscious of the load exercises necessity, so an awareness-raising campaign should be launched