“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 get older, you have to move more (than
you may feel like)! Life
is motion. Motion is life. Researchers are really putting out
some amazing information on this topic that will motivate
us all (and our cherished family members!) to exercise so that we can all age
gracefully. Minster Chiropractic Center and our Minster 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. Minster Chiropractic Center will give you that! When hospitalized, there’s lots of bed rest, maybe even a bit too much for a patient’s
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 get up and move around. (1) It
is so important 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 improved their muscle strength and power while they
were in the hospital using an individualized
multicomponent exercise program that integrated power
training in as little as 3 days! (2) In a review of the benefits
of exercise for frail older adults,
researchers emphasized the importance of preserving
functional abilities for those who want to grow old gracefully.
They further put emphasis on the
fact that exercise and physical activity are valuable
for the prevention 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
Minster Chiropractic Center encourages that!
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 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 ‘pre-frail’ or just
mildly so). (4) Those are hopeful
outcomes! One study said that frail and even “pre” frail older
patients showed better physical performance and function following
a brief (6 week) facility-based exercise routine that
involved a walking-based high intensity interval training. 64% upped
their frailty rating. Particularly, muscle power improved
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 tend to lower energy levels and raise
fatigue and emotional distress. Moving and physical activity has been described
to fight those feelings in older women as well as increase
life expectancy and cut back on some negative effects of a
sedentary lifestyle. (6) Minster Chiropractic Center thinks you will
concur that these are beneficial!
CONTACT Minster Chiropractic Center
Listen to this PODCAST
with Dr. Tom Menendez on The
Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he
describes the effective gentle
protocols of The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management in treating the older
patient.
Make your Minster chiropractic
appointment today. You’re alive. What a wonderful thing!
Celebrate that with some movement.