Musings of a Compulsive Thinker

Why Great Aunt Alma should take up tai chi

The short answer: because of its physical benefits. Activities like yoga and tai chi can lead to improvements in balance abilities and overall physical performance.

Let's say that Great Aunt Alma is a typical healthy senior citizen. She likes to go for long walks, she's never broken a bone, and she doesn't have any specific disorders or diseases. But she tends to move more slowly and cautiously than younger adults. And if a distracted little kid bumped into her, she would be more likely to fall than a younger adult would. Doctors and scientists have conducted a plethora of research that can quantify these age-related changes in many different ways.

If you ask someone to stand quietly in place for a period of time, they will sway a little bit, slowly and continuously. (This is because of how the brain controls posture.) Elderly adults tend to have greater sway than young adults. Also, if you ask someone to lean and reach as far as they can in any given direction, they will reach as far as they can without falling; elderly adults tend to reach less far than younger adults, and they also reach to a smaller percentage of their actual capacity. In other simple tests of mobility such as the sit-to-stand test (stand up from a chair) and gait initiation tests (from a stand-still, begin walking), there is more evidence to show that elderly adults move more slowly and cautiously; these changes have been quantified using various measures of body displacement, velocity, acceleration, and timing.

But who says Great Aunt Alma is doomed to be ever more feeble and wobbly? Several studies -- and two in particular which I read recently -- have demonstrated improvements in elderly adults' balance abilities after practicing activities such as tai chi, yoga, and so-called "soft gymnastics" for some period of time. For example, a study by Vallabhajosula et al. tested six older adults who didn't perform any kind of regular physical activity and who had some degree of "mobility disability." For 16 weeks, they practiced tai chi for one hour, three times each week; as a simple measure of their mobility and balance, they performed gait initiation testing at the start and again at the end of the 16 weeks. After 16 weeks of tai chi, these people were moving faster and more strongly than they had before. Now, Great Aunt Alma is more likely to stay on her feet when that distracted little kid bumps into her.

My father has sworn by the benefits of yoga ever since I can remember. I know that when I do yoga regularly, my chronic back tension and muscle aches are greatly reduced. Other research studies have shown that regular practice of tai chi or yoga can improve balance and gait in elderly adults, can improve balance and motor control in people with Parkinson's disease, and can lead to reduced pain from arthritis and fibromyalgia. There are plenty of explanations for why and how, but the main point here is that it's really good for your physical health.

Further non-technical reading:
Washington Post: "Yoga for seniors can help with balance, agility and strength."
Harvard Health Blog: "Try tai chi to improve balance, avoid falls."
Johns Hopkins Arthritis Center: "Yoga for Arthritis."
New York Times: "Tai chi reported to ease fibromyalgia."
New York Times: "Tai chi benefits patients with Parkinson's."

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Labels: engineering, my future, science

posted by the alygator @ 12:28 AM