March 2001

Keeping That Get Up and Go

By Ann Carlson

Keeping That Get Up and Go

Active seniors decrease the risk of mobility disorders through exercise.

se it or lose it is the secret to avoiding mobility disorders for seniors, say C. Jessie Jones, PhD, and Debra Rose, PhD, codirectors of the Center for Successful Aging at California State University, Fullerton (CSUF). The challenge is encouraging older adults to engage in physical activity.

Senior Fitness Test

With this in mind, Jones and colleague Roberta E. Rikli, PhD, developed the Senior Fitness Test (SFT), which will be published as a complete manual this year by Human Kinetics Publishers. Originally called the Functional Fitness Test, the SFT measures aerobic endurance, motor agility, dynamic balance, and upper- and lower-body strength and flexibility. The six-step test includes everyday activities such as standing from a seated position, lifting, and walking.1

“The SFT provides an easy-to-use assessment tool for older adults to determine if they are ‘at risk’ for loss of functional independence and mobility disorders,” Jones notes. “The test battery includes national norms in 5-year increments for women and men between the ages of 60 and 94 years, and therefore allows older adults completing the test to compare themselves with others of the same age and gender.” Once seniors measure their performance against national norms, they can set their goals accordingly.

In a 1999 study,2 Jones and Rikli evaluated more than 7,000 participants through the SFT. They found that older adults who engaged in physical activity had approximately 50% less physical performance decline than sedentary older adults. “These findings clearly indicate that regular involvement in physical activity significantly delays the decline in the underlying physical parameters that contribute to functional mobility and independence,” Rose says.

Enter the PT

Getting the message across to the older population takes effort—and rehab professionals play a key role in encouraging seniors to stay active.

“Physical therapists should be integral members of any interdisciplinary team working to prevent the loss of functional mobility and injurious falls that are a consequence,” Rose comments. “They serve an important role in identifying the underlying impairments contributing to the loss of functional mobility, and the necessary skills for treating those impairments. They also possess the diagnostic skills necessary for identifying older adults at high risk for falls.” She adds that rehab professionals should ask about their patients’ physical activity patterns at each therapy session and discuss the frequency, duration, type, and intensity of activities that will encourage the best outcomes. “Physical therapists routinely prescribe home exercise programs for their patients, so it seems appropriate that they should discuss the benefits of regular physical activity and recommend particular activities that would best suit the patient,” she says. Jones and Rose also recommend that rehab professionals take time to learn about and visit the different activity classes available to older adults within their immediate area to determine their overall quality.

Of course, everyday activities often fit the exercise bill. “Challenging the body to walk longer, move faster, lift more, and stretch further are the keys to remaining physically independent,” Jones says.

With the help of a $308,000 grant from the Archstone Foundation, Rose and Jones have started balance and mobility programs in 18 senior centers over the past 3 years. In addition to instructors, who were mostly graduates of kinesiology programs with a focus on older adult fitness, participants work with healthy, older adult peer monitors.

“Participating in a group program with other older adults experiencing similar problems, who are visibly showing improvement on a weekly basis, is very empowering,” Rose says. “The positive feedback generated by the healthy peer mentors and other participants observing the improvements also fosters increased awareness of the important role played by targeted exercise and improved balance and mobility. It is our position that more meaningful and age-appropriate planning is needed for older adults in general, particularly those who are not aging as successfully as their peers.”

One future goal of the Center for Successful Aging is to develop a community outreach fall risk reduction program to address the multiple causes of declining mobility and increased fall risk among the older adult population. “The average older adult spends 12 years of his or her life with some type of major physical disability,” Jones says. “Identifying ways to promote active life expectancy and reduce the onset of physical frailty has become a major goal for gerontology researchers and allied health practitioners throughout the world, ourselves included.”

Beating the Odds

According to Jones, most adults lose 40% of their physical processes between the ages of 30 and 80, but consistent physical activity can add 10 to 15 active years to adult lives.

“Unless we begin to devote more of our nationwide resources to preventive health care, we would project that the next generation of older adults will indeed live longer, but less successfully,” Rose and Jones assert. “Unfortunately, it appears that although life expectancy for Americans continues to increase, so too do the possibilities of living more years with major physical limitations for sedentary older adults.”

Exercise offers a solid solution. Studies3 show that exercise both strengthens seniors and prevents mobility disorders. “Research has indicated that the most effective method to reduce age-related mobility disorders leading to frailty is through early detection of physical weaknesses and appropriate and immediate adjustments in physical activity behaviors,” Jones says. “It is never too late to begin exercising as a means to delay the loss of functional independence.”

Ann Carlson is news editor of Rehab Management.

References

1. Jones J. Assessments for older adults. IDEA Health & Fitness Source. 2000;18(1).,/li>

2. Rikli RE, Jones CJ. The development and validation of a functional fitness test for community-residing older adults. Journal of Aging and Physical Activity. 1999;7:129-161.

3. Brandon LJ, Gaasch D, Boyette L, Lloyd A. Strength training for older adults: benefits, guidelines, and adherence. ACSM’s Health & Fitness Journal. November/December 2000:4,6.

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