Benefits Of Geriatric Exercise

The image of the elderly is changing. Retirement age no longer means bridge games and blankets, but a time to stay healthy, strong, and engaged in a full and meaningful life. The key to having this zip and vitality in your later years involves eating right, getting enough sleep, learning stress management techniques and staying physically active through exercise.

Reduced Risk of Disease

You may already have a chronic condition that you're coping with, but exercise can help you control your condition while reducing your risk of additional medical problems. Regular exercise can improve your cholesterol, lower your blood pressure, improve neurocognitive functions, reduce the pain of osteoarthritis, stop the progress and possibly reverse the damage of osteoporosis. Additionally, exercising consistently can reduce your risk heart disease, certain kinds of cancers, diabetes, dementia and obesity.

Improved Strength

Maintaining muscle strength may help you perform every day tasks, keeping you independent and self-reliant. About age 30, you begin losing lean-muscle mass, but strength training can stop as well as reverse this loss. Research by Maria A. Fiatarone, M.D., published in "The New England Journal of Medicine" in 1994 showed that long-term nursing care patients gained an average 189 percent increase in knee-extension strength after engaging in regular strength training activities. Patients showed increased mobility, less risk of depression, better lipoprotein profiles and longer survival.

Fall Prevention

If you are concerned with falling, as many seniors are, you may worry that the activity involved with exercise will increase this risk. However, regular exercise actually builds strength, stamina and balance while preventing bone loss, which reduces your risk of falling.

Mental Health

Exercise is beneficial not only physically but mentally as well. Regular exercise improves the quality of your sleep by helping you fall asleep faster, and then sleep more deeply. Consistent activity also elevates your mood and generates greater self-confidence through the endorphins activity produces. Also, exercise improves cognitive function, which can prevent memory loss and slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease.

Tips and Warnings

Talk to your doctor before you start any new exercise program, especially if you have any pre-existing medical conditions. Start slowly and work at your own fitness level. Remember to warm up and cool down. Drink water before, during and after exercise to avoid dehydration. Consider walking, water aerobics, yoga, tai chi or a class designed for seniors. Stop exercising if you feel dizzy, short of breath, have chest pains, experience cold sweats or severe pain, or if a joint is swollen, red or tender to touch.