How Regular Exercise Help Older Adults Improve Overall Health

Getting acquainted with stretching exercises and safer, lower-impact activities may help older adults decide which types of physical activities make the most sense for them. Finding the right mix of exercises and lifestyle modifications can help older adults improve mobility and remain more socially engaged with their families and friends. The right combination of activities focusing on strength, balance, and coordination directly helps in improving mobility. Specific activities designed to enhance balance and coordination are ideal for seniors to work on as part of their exercise regimen.

 Seniors Holding Swiss Balls for Exercise

 

Incorporate Strength Training

Exercises build strength and flexibility, which also helps to improve balance and coordination, decreasing your risk of falls. Strength training increases muscle mass, which may help with improved balance and protect against bone mass loss. Strength training helps prevent loss of bone mass and improves balance, helping older adults avoid falls and fractures. Strength training and resistance exercises are beneficial for increasing bone density and reducing fall risks in osteoporosis.

 

When it comes to the problem of increased risk for falls and decreased mobility, exercise and physical activity are crucial to your preventive health care. An active lifestyle helps keep your balance and prevent falls, building muscular strength, which improves your bone health afterward, with easy, low-impact exercises.

  

Keep Activity Level Going

Regular exercise in older adults helps promote mental and physical health, which both help preserve your independence as you get older. Even in your more senior years, improving your physical and mobility skills will enhance your mental and physical health and your quality of life. In older populations, exercise has been shown to prevent diseases, reduce your risk of falls, increase your mental health and wellbeing, increase social connections, and enhance cognitive functions. Regular exercise and increased aerobic fitness are associated with decreased all-cause mortality and disease rates. They are proven to reduce illness and disability and improve the quality of life of older adults.    

 

seniors looking happy on field 

Leverage Exercise for Mental Health

Further, exercise is essential for helping individuals living with conditions such as dementia and Parkinson’s disease maintain their balance and coordination and extend their functional independence. Many health conditions may benefit from physical exercise, including Alzheimer's, other forms of dementia, heart disease, diabetes, constipation, hypertension, and obesity. Regular exercise provides myriad health benefits, including improved blood pressure and glucose control, reduced levels of lipids in the blood, better health of bones and joints, and the long-term preservation of neurocognitiveions. Regular exercise and active living in older aduprovidevinprovideitiveproviderovidevarious health benefits beyond the obvious, including improvements in blood pressure, diabetes, lipid profiles, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and neurocognitive function.

 male and female senior stretching on yoga mat

 

Know What Works

Specific aerobic exercises, such as swimming, yoga, or walking, are strongly recommended for seniors because they enhance heart health without stressing joints and muscles. Relaxation exercises, such as meditation practices, are also crucial in the overall health care plan of older, housebound adults at risk of mobility problems and physical ailments. Safe, practical stretching exercises are beneficial for older adults and seniors for improving flexibility and helping with balance and coordination.

 

To decrease falls, it is also recommended that balance training should be included in older adults’ physical activity programs. As part of weekly physical activities, older adults should engage in varied, multicomponent physical activities emphasizing functional balance and resistance exercises, with medium to high intensity, three or more days per week, to increase available capacities to prevent falls. If older adults cannot meet WHOs exercise recommendations due to chronic conditions, they should be active in their abilities and needs permit.

 male older adult checking smartwatch

 

Do it in Moderation 

Moderate exercise helps older adults retain the capacity for walking at 18% higher rates than older adults who did not exercise. Researchers have shown that prescribed daily physical activity prevents older adults from losing their ability to move, defined in one study as being able to walk 400 meters or roughly one-quarter mile. In addition, the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that older adults who exercised had improvements in functional range of motion and balance and decreased participants’ fears of falling. Meta-analyses of RCTs on aerobic exercise in healthy adults have also been associated with significant improvements in cognition scores, concluding that physical activity can also blunt cognitive decline through alleviating cerebrovascular risks, including the contribution of small vessel disease to dementia. KAREWatch™ MG Medical Alert Smartwatch allows seniors to monitor their heart rate, blood pressure, blood oxygen level, and body temperature while doing exercises and other activities. Through real-time monitoring of these critical vital signs, seniors and their caregivers can actively monitor seniors’ health and activity levels to gauge the intensity of the exercise, a cue to prevent exhaustion or over-exertion among older adults. 

Illnesses, disorders, and other health conditions at the root of the problem do not disappear with exercise, but staying active may help maintain a high quality of life.

Get your KAREWatch™ MG Medical Alert Smartwatch today as your partner to stay active. Contact us at KAREWatch.com, or call us at 855 932 KARE for more information.

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