UPFRONT | News and events FITNESS Physical activity of older people requires tailored monitoring The ability to move about may deteriorate when aging, a phenomenon which needs to be considered when as-sessing physical activity in older people. A study on active aging at the Univer-sity of Jyväskylä examined movement that exceeds the intensity of preferred walk-ing speed. Improving physical per-formance requires exercising regularly beyond one’s usual level of exertion. The body then adapts to the new level of exertion by improving performance. Many activity monitors on the market have been developed for young and middle-aged people who have higher physical performance than older adults. Therefore, activity monitors may underestimate the exertion level of older adults’ activity. In the study, preferred walking speed was meas-ured in a six-minute walking test. In addition, the partic-ipants wore an activity monitor while living their day-to-day life. “By measuring their pre-ferred walking speed we were able to assess the time that our participants exer-cised more strenuously than what is their usual exertion level and what is beyond their comfort zone,” explains postdoctoral researcher Laura Karavirta from the Gerontology Research Center and Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences. The participants in the study accumulated 62 min-utes of activity, on average, beyond the intensity of their HEALTHY LIVING Lifting weights makes your nervous system stronger, too Gym-goers may get frustrated when they don’t see results from weight-lifting right away, but their efforts are not in vain: the first few weeks of training strengthen the nervous system, not muscles. New research published in JNeurosci reveals how. The brain orchestrates movement via two major neural highways descending to the spinal cord: the corticospinal tract (CST) and retic-ulospinal tract (RST). The CST is thought to be the dominant pathway, with the RST controlling posture. However, the CST does not change during strength training, so increased strength must stem from the more primitive RST. Glover and Baker trained monkeys to pull a weighted handle using one arm, with the weight gradually increasing over twelve weeks. Each day, the scientists stimulated the motor cortex and the two motor tracts, measuring the resulting electrical activity in the arm muscles. Over the course of the training regimen, the electrical response from stimulating the cortex and RST increased --a sign of strengthened signaling. After three more months of strength training, stimulating the RST elicited a greater response in the side of the spinal cord connect-ed to the trained arm. Outputs from the reticulospinal tract become more powerful during weight training and could be the driving force behind increases in strength. —Society for Neuroscience preferred walking speed. Interestingly, the amount of activity was similar in 75-, 80-and 85-year-old people, regardless of age. The prevailing recom-mendation for all adults is a minimum of 150 minutes of at least moderate intensity physical activity per week. The general definition for moderate intensity is equiv-alent to exceeding three times the energy consump-tion of rest. Individual exer-tion at this intensity varies according to person’s fitness level. “For most young adults, it feels easy and corresponds to slow walking but for some older adults it may be the hardest effort they can perform,” Karavirta says. The study is part of a larger AGNES study for 75-, 80-, and 85-year-old people living independently in Jyväskylä, which is funded by the Academy of Finland and European Re-search Council. Out of 1,021 participants, 444 took part in this study, where a motion sensor was attached to the thigh for a week and preferred walking speed was measured in the laboratory as the average speed in a self-paced six-minute walk-ing test. —University of Jyväskylä RESEARCH Hand and foot massage decrease preoperative anxiety The study: “Effects of Extremity Massage on Preoperative Anxiety: A Three-Arm Randomized Controlled Clinical Trial on Phacoemulsification Candidates” Purpose: The study aimed to compare the effects of foot and hand massage on preoperative anxiety. Methods: Conducted on 90 female candidates waiting for phacoemul-sification cataract surgery in Arak Amirkabir Hospital, Iran. Patients were randomly divided into three groups of hand (n = 30), foot (n = 30), and placebo (n = 30), using a random number generator. In each group, massage was performed 5 minutes for each hand or foot in the surgical waiting room about 10 minutes before surgery. Anxiety was measured before and after the intervention by visual analog scale and also assess-ing physiological indicators (heart rate, respiratory rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressures). Findings: All the 90 patients completed the study and were included in the final analysis. Both hand and foot massage resulted in a significant decrease compared with placebo massage in anxiety and heart rate. However, no significant difference was found between hand and foot massage in any of the measured parameters. In the foot group and hand group, a significant reduction was observed in heart rate and anxiety after the intervention, whereas the anxiety increased significantly in the place-bo group after the intervention. Moreover, systolic blood pressure in the foot group and the respiratory rate in the hand group significantly de-creased after the intervention. (Source: Journal of Perianesthesia Nursing) 8 Chiropractic and Naturopathic Doctor July/August 2020 www.Cndoctor.ca © rocketclips / Adobe Stock
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