Background. The aim of the study was to confront inactive (control group) to active (practicing weight-lifting, dance or meditation) elderly women for investigating the impacts of depression. Analysing the hypothesis that depression in old age is commonly associated with inactivity, this study compares depression in randomly selected elderly women of similar parameters – active practitioners of different activity programs (dance, weight-lifting and meditation) – and in women with a sedentary way of living (control group).

Materials and methods. The sample was divided into four groups: dance (DG, n = 20, age 67 ± 4 years), weight-lifting (WG, n = 15, age 67 ± 5 years), meditation (MG, n = 15, age 68 ± 4 years) and control (CG, n = 20, age 68 ± 6 years). The Kruskal–Wallis and Shapiro–Wilk tests were employed. To evaluate depression, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) was utilized. The expected level II error was 10%, and the accepted level I error was 1%.

Results. The Kruskal–Wallis test revealed a significant difference (p < 0.001) among the groups. Satisfactory results were found in multiple comparisons between DG × CG (CI = –47.723–6.671), WG × CG (CI = –55.024–10.676) and MG × CG (CI = –62.024– 17.676). The practice of activity, either physical (dance and weight-lifting) or meditation, showed statistically reliable satisfactory results (p < 0.05) as regards depression versus the control group.

Conclusions. This original research, comparing the groups of active and non-active elderly women, has shown that the activity programs, either physical (dance and weightlifting) or meditation, as compared with inactivity (control group), contributed to a lower level of depression.

Keywords: depression, elderly women, inactivity, meditation, weight-lifting, dance