“Life is about movement - everything that is alive moves.”
(1)
What a great thing to realize!
No matter your age, you really must move. As you grow older, you have to move more (than
you may want)! Life equals motion. Motion equals life. Researchers are really putting out
some amazing information on this fact that will motivate
us all (and our loved ones!) to exercise so that we can all grow old and grow old(er)
gracefully. Hollstrom & Associates Inc and our Largo 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 is not always best! It may be less
frightening than moving and be even a bit
soothing. Hollstrom & Associates Inc will give you that! If
you’ve ever been hospitalized, you know there’s 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 negligible despite their individual capabilities and desires to get up and move around. (1) It’s so important 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 enhanced their muscle strength and power while they
were in the hospital following an individualized
multicomponent exercise program that incorporated 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 maintaining
functional abilities for those who want to age healthily.
They further underscored the fact that exercise and physical activity are effective
for the prevention of falls, hospital stays, improved
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
Hollstrom & Associates Inc encourages it!
FRAILTY AND MOBILITY
Those of us over 65 years old are said to be more at
risk to frailty, increasing our risk of lot
of other undesirable health issues, both cognitive
and physical. The hope we all have is that frailty is reversible.
Researchers have studied this issue by appraising
published studies on this topic of frailty reversal. Luckily,
56.7% of the papers proposed that it is reversible (returning
a person who is frail/severely frail to a state of being just pre-frail or just mildly frail). (4) Those are positive
outcomes! One study said that frail and even “pre” frail older
patients demonstrated better physical performance and function after
a brief (6 week) facility-based exercise program that
involved a walking-based high intensity interval training. 64% improved
their frailty rating. Specifically, muscle power went up
by 47%, muscle strength by 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 tend to lower energy levels and raise
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 reduce some negative effects of a
sedentary lifestyle. (6) Hollstrom & Associates Inc thinks you will
agree that these are beneficial!
CONTACT Hollstrom & Associates Inc
Listen to this PODCAST
with Dr. Tom Menendez on The
Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he
describes the effectiveness of the gentle
protocols of The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management in treating the elderly.
Make your Largo chiropractic
appointment soon. You’re alive. What a wonderful fact, one to be thankful for by moving!