Old Not Weak

20/01/2020

Healthy Ageing- How To Age Disease Free.

A major challenge is to consider how to increase the quality and years of healthy life. The findings from this community-based study has moved the research forward in this area by showing an independent and positive association between total physical activity and a multidimensional concept of successful aging over 10 years of follow-up, in an initially disease-free population.

Specifically, we show that older adults who engaged in higher levels total physical activity (≥5000 MET minutes/week) at baseline were 2-fold more likely to be disease-free and fully functional, that is, having aged successfully 10 years later.

Ref: Gopinath B, et al. Physical Activity as a Determinant of Successful Aging over Ten Years. Scientific Reports 2018; 8: 10522.

20/01/2020

Avoid Muscle Weakness At All Costs

Muscle weakness predicts illness, quality of life and all-cause mortality.

Here is 83 year old Alice crushing her seated calf raise.

Rate of force development in the plantarflexors are a predictor of gait speed.

19/01/2020

Are We Targeting These Muscles in Older Adults to Maintain Walking?

Adductors, medial gastrocnemius and soleus the biggest contributors during walking.

15/01/2020

Importance of Quadriceps in Maintaining Walking Speed.

Quadriceps and hamstrings muscles, along with the gastrocnemii, are the largest contributors to articular loading at the knee during walking and impact the distribution of loads across the knee.

Further, greater quadriceps strength has been shown to be related to faster walking speed.

Build these not with theraband or hydrotherapy, but with heavy slow resistance.

15/01/2020

Want to double your odds of aging disease-free and optimise mental & physical health?

Older adults who engaged in high levels of total physical activity, well above the current recommended minimum level had a greater likelihood of aging successfully 10 years later.

14/01/2020

14/01/2020

High Fitness Levels = Less Language Decline.

Healthy ageing is associated with decline in cognitive abilities such as language. Aerobic fitness has been shown to ameliorate decline in some cognitive domains.

Maintaining good language skills is important for older adults. The experience of healthy ageing is only loosely related to one’s numerical age. The way people move, feel, think, interact with and talk to others all co-determine the ageing experience.

Higher aerobic fitness levels decrease the probability of experiencing tip-of-the-tongue states in healthy older adults. Fitness-related differences in word finding abilities are observed over and above effects of age. This is the first demonstration of a link between aerobic fitness and language functioning in healthy older adults.

Ref: Segaert K, et al. Higher physical fitness levels are associated with less language decline in healthy ageing. Scientific Reports 2018; 8; 6715.