Keep Moving As You Age So That You Can Grow Older Gracefully!
“Life is about movement - everything that is alive moves.” (1)
What a great reminder! No matter your age, you have to move. As you age, you have to move more (than you may feel like)! Life is motion. Motion is life. Researchers are really sharing some amazing information on this fact that will motivate us all (and our loved ones!) to move so that we can all grow old and grow old(er) gracefully. Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre and our Toronto chiropractic patients will all grow old better working together, exercising, moving, and meeting at the office for gentle Cox® treatment!
BED REST AND MOBILITY
Bed rest isn’t always best! It may be less frightening than moving and be even a bit calming. Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre will give you that! If you have ever been hospitalized, you know there is a lot of bed rest, maybe even too much for your liking! A study of patients in an acute care hospital ward found that inpatient mobility was low despite their individual capabilities and desires to get up and move around. (1) It is vital to keep acute patients - and those with new bouts of back pain and/or neck pain, too - moving so that they can heal! Beneficially, acutely hospitalized older patients improved their muscle strength and power while hospitalized using a personalized multicomponent exercise program that integrated power training in just 3 days! (2) In a review of the good that exercise offers for frail older adults, researchers emphasized the importance of preserving functional abilities for those who want to age healthily. They further stressed that exercise and physical activity are good to prevent of falls, hospital stays, enriched cognition, etc. Exercises from power training (yes – power training for older folks!) to resistance training, balance exercises, aerobic training, walking, etc. (3) Mobility is part of keeping frailty away, and Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre encourages it!
FRAILTY AND MOBILITY
Those of us over 65 years old are said to be more prone to frailty, amplifying our risk of several adverse health issues, both cognitive and physical. The hope we all have is that frailty is reversible. Researchers have studied this issue by reviewing published studies on this topic of frailty reversal. Luckily, 56.7% of the papers proposed that it is reversible (getting a person who is frail/severely frail to a state of being just pre-frail or just mildly frail). (4) Those are hopeful outcomes! One study said that frail and even “pre” frail older patients showed better physical performance and function following a short (6 week) facility-based exercise program that involved a walking-based high intensity interval training. 64% bettered their frailty rating. Specifically, muscle power went up by 47%, muscle strength rose 34%, and aerobic capacity rose 19%. (5) And other additional benefits with physical activity in general: energy and a better emotional state! Frailty and aging are more apt to decrease energy levels and stated fatigue and emotional distress. Moving and physical activity has been reported to fight those feelings in older women as well as increase life expectancy and lower some negative effects of a sedentary lifestyle. (6) Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre thinks you will concur that these are positive things!
CONTACT Yorkville Chiropractic and Wellness Centre
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Tom Menendez on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he details the effective gentle protocols of The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management in treating the older patient.
Schedule your Toronto chiropractic appointment soon. You’re alive. What a wonderful thing! Celebrate that with some movement.
