“Life is about movement - everything that is alive moves.”
(1)
What a great reminder!
No matter your age, you really must move. As you get older, you have to move more (than
you may want)! Life
is motion. Motion is life. Researchers are really delivering
some great information on this fact that will inspire
us all (and our loved ones!) to move so that we can all age
gracefully. Back And Neck Care Center and our Severna Park 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
scary than moving and be even a bit
calming. Back And Neck Care Center will give you that! If
you have 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 capacities to
move and desires to move. (1) It
is vital to keep acute patients - and those with new bouts of back pain and/or neck pain, too - moving to get them better! Beneficially, acutely hospitalized older
patients enhanced their muscle strength and power while hospitalized using a personalized
multicomponent exercise program that incorporated power
training in as little as 3 days! (2) In a review of the good that exercise offers for frail older adults,
researchers stressed the value of preserving
functional abilities for those who want to age healthily.
They further put emphasis on the
fact that exercise and physical activity are valuable
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 at bay, and
Back And Neck Care Center encourages it!
FRAILTY AND MOBILITY
Those of us over 65 years old are said to be more at
risk to frailty, amplifying our risk of lot
of other undesirable health issues, both cognitive
and physical. The hope we all have is that frailty is alterable.
Researchers have studied this issue by examining
published studies on this topic of frailty reversal. Luckily,
56.7% of the papers suggested 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 promising
outcomes! One study shared that frail and even “pre” frail older
patients showed better physical performance and function after
a short (6 week) facility-based exercise program that
included a walking-based high intensity interval training. 64% bettered
their frailty rating. Specifically, muscle power improved
by 47%, muscle strength rose 34%, and aerobic capacity by
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 extend
life expectancy and lower some negative effects of a
sedentary lifestyle. (6) Back And Neck Care Center thinks you’ll
agree that these are positive things!
CONTACT Back And Neck Care Center
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 Severna Park chiropractic
appointment today. You’re alive. What a wonderful fact!
Celebrate that with some movement.