低强度身心运动应对老龄化社会心理健康：太极作为可扩展干预覆盖抑郁、焦虑、失眠、孤独与认知衰退

Abstract

Population ageing is increasing the number of older adults who experience overlapping depressive symptoms, anxiety, insomnia, loneliness, and cognitive vulnerability, often alongside multimorbidity, pain, frailty, and functional limitation. This structured narrative review evaluates Tai Chi as a scalable, low-intensity mind–body exercise for these interconnected problems. We synthesised 171 publications identified through PubMed and citation chaining, including Tai Chi-specific clinical studies, broader mind–body evidence, guidelines, and implementation literature. Evidence is most consistent for reducing depressive symptoms, improving sleep, and improving balance, with possible benefits for selected cognitive outcomes. Evidence is weaker for diagnosed depressive or anxiety disorders, loneliness as a primary outcome, long-term cognitive trajectories, and dementia incidence. Tai Chi should therefore be positioned as an adjunct to established care, not as a replacement for pharmacotherapy, psychotherapy, cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, or multidomain dementia-risk reduction. Proposed pathways include autonomic regulation, sleep stabilisation, behavioural activation, balance confidence, cognitive–motor integration, and group participation; however, most mechanism evidence is indirect or exploratory. Translation requires clearly specified protocols, active comparators, blinded outcome assessment where feasible, long-term follow-up, systematic adverse-event reporting, cost-effectiveness analysis, and equity-focused implementation. Tai Chi is most credible as an adaptable component of stepped or integrated care for older adults, provided that programmes are standardised, safely delivered, and evaluated against clinically meaningful outcomes.

Keywords

Community Health, Exercise Therapy, Geriatric Psychiatry, Meditative movement, Mild Cognitive Impairment, non-pharmacological intervention, sleep quality, Social Participation

Received

23 June 2026

Accepted

30 September 2026

Copyright

© 2026 Zhang and Shi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Yaya Shi

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