Getting Older People Walking
Sedentary Seniors' Health Improved with Exercise
Walking is a simple effective exercise, but many people become sedentary as they age. Research has shown that increasing seniors' walking levels improves their health
For many older people (65+), decreasing physical activity is a normal aspect of the aging process. Not just because of increasing aches and pains from arthritis, rheumatism, or caution about brittle bones and possible cardiac problems, but because they accept being sedentary as appropriate to aging.
However, geriatric researchers at UCLA set out prove to older adults that it is possible to stay active throughout the later years.
Remaining Physically Active at All Ages
"We can teach older adults to get rid of those old beliefs that becoming sedentary is just a normal part of growing older," said Dr. Catherine Sarkisian, assistant professor of geriatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and the study's lead author.
"We can teach them that they can and should remain physically active at all ages."
Attribution Retraining Changes Attitudes to Activity
Dr Sarkisian’s team worked with a group of 46 sedentary adults aged 65 and older from three senior centers in the Los Angeles area, using a technique called ‘attribution retraining’.
Over four weeks, in hour-long group sessions led by a trained health educator, the participants were taught to reject the notion that ‘becoming older means becoming sedentary’ and to accept that they could continue engaging in physical activity well into old age.
Participants were fitted with electronic pedometers, to be worn at all times, which measured the number of steps they took each week. They also completed surveys that gauged their expectations about aging — higher scores indicated that participants expected high functioning with aging, while lower scores meant they expected physical and mental decline.
Sedentary Seniors’ Health Improved with Exercise
By the end of the program, the elderly participants had increased the number of steps they took each day by up to 24 percent, and their expectations of functioning in old age had risen by 30 per cent.
In addition, all of them reported their mental health and quality of life had improved, and they had fewer difficulties with daily activities, experienced less pain, had higher energy levels and slept better.
Dr Sarkisian said this was the first time that attribution retraining had been tested in a physical activity intervention, although it is recognised as successful in educational interventions.
In the introduction to the paper on the study, Pilot Test of an Attribution Retraining Intervention to Raise Walking Levels in Sedentary Older Adults, published in the November 2007 issue of Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, she and her co-authors wrote: "An intervention combining attribution retraining with a weekly exercise class raised walking levels and improved quality of life in sedentary older adults in this community-based pilot study.
"Attribution retraining deserves further investigation as a potential means of increasing physical activity in sedentary older adults."
See also: Exercise Could Prevent Dementia
