Out & About Autumn 2019

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Physical Health Injury, Ageing and “Functional Decline”

“Functional Decline” is a medical term that refers to the reduction in someone’s ability to do the things they used to do, or want to do, and it can apply to all of us. There are many potential causes of such decline, but research indicates that most of those causes can be addressed if you take the right steps. There are two major categories of such decline that can be reversed - in this article we want to discuss both of them. What is Functional Decline? It is likely that you can remember some point in your life when you could do things that you wanted or needed to do with little dif�iculty and with few negative consequences. This might have been doing sports at school or with your friends, playing with your young family, dancing the night away, or simply doing the spring cleaning. Whatever the activities were you used to be able to do them - and now you can’t so easily. Medical research calls this “functional decline” and might be measured by assessing how far people can walk, or climb stairs, or other similar daily functions . Medical research † has also looked into the potential causes of this decline and speci�ically looked into the following potential contributory factors: x Adiposity (body fat) x Muscle Mass x Muscle Strength and found that all contribute to this decline, but not in the way you might imagine. In particular muscle mass and strength play a much bigger role in decline, or maintenance of function than fatness. Injury A major cause of functional decline is injury and illness; if (heaven forbid) you have a foot amputated because of T - II diabetes you aren’t ever going to grow it back. But it † Epidemiologic Reviews: Vol 35, 2013. Adiposity, Muscle Mass, and Muscle Strength in Rela�on to Func�onal Decline in Older Persons ”

is possible to mitigate the impacts of injury and illness by ensuring the �ittest body you can have, either before the injury (i.e. preparing for a knee operation by strengthening the legs and buttocks), and undertaking the right kind of remedial exercise after injury and treatment. A story from Marie shows what can be achieved: “ I started going to yoga classes in the late 1960s, which was the start of my relationship with regular exercise, and in the 70s was inspired to train as a yoga teacher. This gave me a heightened awareness of the importance of exercise to wellbeing. When I moved near to Newbury, I found that my old friends, Pat and Stephen McKinnon, were planning to open Abstract Bodyworks, a new

Letting Yourself Go We all tend to believe that as we age we become less functional “naturally”; i.e. there is nothing you can do about it. Unhappily this isn’t true; certainly people have different levels of natural health and capability, but all of us can maintain these levels to a much greater extent than is comfortable to believe. We all “let ourselves go” and in doing so let ourselves down, to a future that is much more restricted and limited than it needs to be. Modern, “western”, lifestyles place fewer and fewer demands on our bodies, and as a consequence we are required to do less and less to stay alive. But the body is very clever - if you don’t make demands on it the body will change its composition to match your current demands. This actually involves losing muscle �irst rather than gaining fat (which is a consequence of losing muscle). And this can happen at any age ; looking at the bodies of some teenagers today shows us how true that is. It is very important then to hold on to the muscle mass you have, and to regrow as much as you can that you have lost - so you need to monitor your body composition. Reversing the Decline Because most of us don’t know how we lost function in the �irst place we are not in a position to reverse that loss. That is where a specialist exercise facility like Abstract Bodyworks comes in. Our one purpose is to increase the �itness of our clients - at any age, with any body, from any condition. We achieve this by placing physical demands on our clients that generate positive responses, in muscle mass, muscle tone, and bone density, to name but a few. And we provide regular reports so you know how your body composition is changing. But whatever you do, don’t take functional decline as inevitable - you can make a better, healthier, future for yourself. See adver�s ment on page 16 for details of how to book two free personal strength training sessions. Quote O&AQ32019

style of gym that they had found while living in America, and I became one of their �irst clients in January 2013. This was the same year that I turned 70, and was diagnosed with mild osteoporosis. I felt that the sort of exercise they offered would be especially helpful in preventing any

further deterioration – and so it has proved. Now, in 2019, I have been signed off my osteoporosis medicines because my bone density has actually improved - a fantastic result for me!. I know that my muscle tone has also increased because of the regular reports I receive and I believe I survived and recovered from a serious car accident partly because of the additional strength and muscle I have developed over the years.” In fact in these six years Marie has INCREASED her muscle mass and strength by up to 60%!

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