PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IS A GOOD WAY TO RESTORE WORK PRODUCTIVITY OF PEOPLE WITH DEPRESSION

Among the factors that can negatively affect capacity to work, mental health problems play a significant part. The symptoms of depressive disorders affect four spheres of human functioning: emotional, behavioural/motivational, physica/somatic and cognitive. Physical activity may be one of multiple therapies for improvement, maintenance and development of cognitive functions. The research aim was to evaluate the effect of group aerobic exercises, strength physical exercises and active video games impact on cognitive functions of depressed patients. Research involved participants with depression who were divided into the experimental (n = 39) and control (n = 13) groups. Twelve exercise sessions were applied for the experimental groups (group aerobic physical exercises, strength physical exercises and active video games). After physical activity sessions, subjectively evaluated mood improved statistically significantly (p<0.05). In the experimental group, the best results were in group aerobic exercises - reaction time in cognitive tests after exercising improved statistically significantly (p < 0.05), faster than the control group, but changes in the mean of correct responses were not statistically significant (p > 0.05). Strength physical exercises showed improvement only in the tests of simple reaction time and mathematical processing (p<0,05). Active video games showed no statistically significant changes in cognitive performance (p>0,05). Physical activity training sessions improved the cognitive functions of depressed patients, which clearly demonstrates the benefits of physical activity to work productivity. Group aerobic exercises have better impact on cognitive functions compared to active video games and strength physical exercises.