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| Latest Wellness Research |
Exercise Reduces Disability and Hospitalizations in Elderly
A new study shows that as we get older, exercise programs designed to increase muscle density and physical function in the elderly could help reduce rates of disability and hospitalization. The study is published in the current issue of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Wow! This is an amazing study. It's not amazing in the conclusions and results. It just another example of an enormous waste of healthcare dollars on what amounts to common sense lifestyle changes that clearly effect health.
Exercise makes us stronger-correct. Stronger equates to a higher density of muscle tissue-correct. Higher densities of muscle tissue helps keep the elderly from falling down and thus reduce disability and hospitalizations.
In my 20 years in practice, one of the first things I learned was that the problem with exercise was getting compliance in following my prescribed regimen. Pure and simple, people do not want to get up or get out to exercise. Unless they show me a study on how to get people to exercise, I'm not impressed or amazed.
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| More Wellness Research |
 Some Drugs Increase Elderly Falling
Findings from a 4-year study conducted in France, published in Geriatrics, July 23, 2009, suggest the risk of falling is 1.4 times greater among elderly men and women taking a long-acting benzodiazepine, compared with age-matched men and women not using this type of anti-anxiety medication, a moderately increased risk of falling among elderly men and women who regularly used mood- and behavior-altering "psychotropic" medications, and similar risk among elderly individuals reporting regular use of tranquilizers, muscle relaxants and anti-spasmodics, and some antihistamines.
They go further to state that some elderly are prescribed inappropriately, and go on to define "inappropriate medication" as drugs likely to have a greater effect on elderly individuals than on their younger counterparts, as well as medications (taken singly or with other drugs) with side effects (dizziness and drowsiness) potentially associated with increased risk for falling.
The irony of this study, is that when you look at all the conditions that some of these medications treat, you soon realize that exercise is more effective and has less side effects in treatment. Exercise could at least lower the "appropriate prescription dosage".
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