Stay Fit To Avoid Becoming A Little Old Lady

If you grew up forty or so years ago, you probably remember the "old" people (age 65?!?) taking tiny, stooped steps down the sidewalks of your town. A healthier older population has made that type of impaired mobility fairly rare.

A new study on disability -- the need for help performing routine daily tasks -- has good and bad news for older middle-aged people.

The bad news: almost everyone is likely to suffer some degree of disability as they age.

The good news: many potential conditions can be prevented or controlled through healthy living.

In "Clinical Pathways to Disability," Harvard University's Mary Beth Landrum, Kate Stewart, and David Cutler looked at data tracking the same age 65+ people over many years. They found that 83% of people aged 65+ had one or more disabling conditions; 54% had two or more.

Six conditions -- arthritis, infectious disease, dementia, heart failure, diabetes and stroke -- led to most new cases of disability. Together these six explain nearly half (48%) of new cases of disability. Other key problems included hip or pelvic fractures, depression, and Parkinson's disease.

The bad news:

"We found that conditions without effective medical treatments - in particular dementia - were major contributors to disability in older persons. Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are highly disabling progressive diseases with few effective interventions to slow their progression. Until effective treatments are found, dementia-related disability is likely to increase in importance."

... but the good news is:

"... many conditions, in particular stroke, heart disease and arthritis, are amenable to both medical and lifestyle interventions, suggesting that increased use of effective medical therapies and control of risk factors could lead to continued improvement in the health of the elderly."

Two conditions are especially problematic: obesity and frailty.

Obesity, the authors note, is a risk factor for arthritis, heart failure, stroke, and diabetes, and other researchers think that today's higher obesity rates will lead to more disabled elderly in the future.

Frailty -- call it lack of strength and fitness -- is another problem. Research on frailty "supports the notion of a pathway to disability that is not a direct result of chronic disease, but instead is associated with age-related loss of physical condition and reserve." Other studies have shown that if you take a group of people who are old but not disabled, the weaker are more likely to subsequently become disabled.

So exercise today ... and plan on exercising tomorrow, and next year, and next decade ... and you may never hear little children whisper "wow, s/he's OLD!" as you walk down the street.