Tai chi improves psychoemotional state, cognition, and motor learning in older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Declaration of competing interest None."

"Funding This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors."

"Seventy-three participants were assessed for eligibility to participate in this study ( ). Inclusion criteria were adults (1) aged ≥60 years who had never previously practiced tai chi; (2) who were physically inactive (<2 days per week of structured physical activity) for at least the previous 6 months; (3) with a score of ≥24 in the Mini-Mental State Examination to exclude cognitive deficits (); (4) with absence of alcohol and/or drug addiction, metabolic, cardiovascular, pulmonary, musculoskeletal, oncological diseases, neurological and mental disorders; (5) with normal or corrected-to-normal vision and hearing; and (6) with body mass index (BMI) >18.5 and < 30 kg/m2. Participants were excluded if they smoked; had significant visual impairment or glaucoma; were unable to perform tai chi movements; had yoga, qigong, martial arts or meditation-related experiences; had uncontrolled hypertension (resting systolic blood pressure (BP) >160 or diastolic BP >100 mmHg) and abnormal heart rate (HR) (resting HR >100 bpm; <50 bpm); or used medications and dietary supplements regularly that might affect experimental variables. In total, 30 (4 men) participants (weight: 71.3 ± 8.7 kg; BMI: 26.0 ± 2.7 kg/m2) aged 67.0 ± 5.9 years were enrolled in the study (). All procedures were approved by the University Bioethics Committee (reference number: MNL-KIN(M)-2020–317) and were performed following the principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants before the baseline examinations. This study is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (trial registration number: NCT04690244).Fig. 1CONSORT flow chart of the study.Fig. 1"