Category Archives: Senior’s Health

C.O.A.C.H Obesity Network

Something different for the blog this month. West 4th Physio associate Marj Belot brought this to our collective attention. This is an excellent initiative that we hope readers will support. We have included the Health Canada recommended activity guidelines in our online library. Please feel free to download them (or tactfully pass them on to those you think could benefit!). They are available here:  http://www.west4thphysio.com/resources/library Help Canadians find credible weight management resources: Support COACH today! The Canadian Obesity Network (CON) is currently working with its partners, members and the public … Read the rest of this post »

Posted in Avoiding Injury, Children's Health, Men's Health, Senior's Health, Women's Health | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Preventing falls

This is the time of year when seniors are most at risk of falls. Icy steps and sidewalks, slippery wet leaves, cold weather slowing reaction time and often poor light hiding treacherous outdoor conditions. So far we’ve been lucky in 2011, at least in the lower mainland, with relatively warm, albeit wet, weather and not to much of the dreaded ice about. But seniors 65 and older are the fastest growing segment of the Canadian population and the estimate is that around 1 in 3 will have at least 1 … Read the rest of this post »

Posted in Avoiding Injury, Men's Health, Osteoporosis, Senior's Health | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Exercise : men vs women

An interesting article appeared in the Globe a few months ago which asked the question: Is it harder for women to lose weight as compared to men because of the different composition of their muscle mass? The answer is a general yes. It is more of a challenge for women because they, on average, have a lower percentage of their overall body weight composed of lean skeletal muscle. You can think of your skeletal muscle as the body’s engine. The bigger the engine, the more fuel it can burn and … Read the rest of this post »

Posted in Avoiding Injury, Children's Health, Men's Health, Senior's Health, Sports, Women's Health | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Osteoporosis guidelines

Late in 2010 I came across an interesting article in the Canadian Medical Journal (CMA) in which new guidelines were outlined to help physicians deal with managing and preventing osteoporosis. According to the study’s lead author, Professor Alexandra Papaioannu, the goal is early identification of those most likely to develop full blown osteoporosis later in life. The approach recommended in the guidelines is quite different to that currently taken. Instead of relying on bone mineral density (BMD) testing  -read more about BMD and testing here- http://www.west4thphysio.com/archives/530 , and then using … Read the rest of this post »

Posted in Avoiding Injury, Low back, Osteoporosis, Senior's Health, Women's Health | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Osteoporosis in men

The  statistics are in and they aren’t pretty. The CMA (Canadian Medical Association) has updated it’s guidelines for helping physicians deal with osteoporosis and I’ll outline some of the changes of focus in both this and the next post. Today; the prevalence of osteoporosis in men. The stats say one in eight men over the age of 50 has the disease. Physicians and other health professionals know the numbers but apparently the general public doesn’t. There is still, it seems, a prevalent train of thought that osteoporosis is a bone … Read the rest of this post »

Posted in Avoiding Injury, Osteoporosis, Senior's Health | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Bladder health – Incontinence

  November is Incontinence Awareness Month  Do you leak urine when you cough, sneeze, or laugh?  Do you limit your time away from home, know where all the bathrooms are in the mall, and always go ‘just in case’?  Well you’re not alone.  Over 3.3 million Canadians experience urinary incontinence and ½ of women will experience problems with incontinence at some point in there lives.  Contrary to popular belief, there are many ways to manage, treat, and in many cases cure incontinence.  Due to embarrassment and the myth that incontinence … Read the rest of this post »

Posted in Senior's Health, Women's Health | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Dynamic Stretching

Following on form the last post on stretching   http://www.west4thphysio.com/seniors-health/thoughts-on-static-stretching/ this post will concentrate on alternatives to the static stretch. For a long time, flexibility has been considered a fundamental part of health and fitness and it has been the aim of all sorts of exercise programs to have as their primary goal an increase in flexibility. Unfortunately, after years of research, there has been no correlation shown between static stretching and a reduction in the frequency of athletic injury. So what to do? There has been a slow recognition … Read the rest of this post »

Posted in Avoiding Injury, Low back, Senior's Health, Sports, Women's Health | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Thoughts on static stretching…

In the 1970’s the running boom came and all over North America people got out  and started a pursuit that has paid terrific health dividends for them over the ensuing years. Back then, popular thought had it that it was necessary to stretch all the major sporting muscle groups before your activity. Being more flexible would offer greater efficiency of motion and prevent injury. If you failed to stretch, injury was pretty much guaranteed, or so the thinking went. There was only one way to stretch and that was what … Read the rest of this post »

Posted in Avoiding Injury, Knee, Running and the SunRun, Senior's Health | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Does joint pain actually damage?

Often I am consulted in the clinic for assessment and treatment of joint pain that has come on without any major trauma. The commonest cause for wear and tear type joint pain is osteoarthrosis (also called osteoarthritis) or degenerative joint disease. Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis and results in the slow destruction of joint cartilage, the springy joint tissue which caps the bone ends and acts as both a shock absorber and bumper. As the cartilage thins,wears and breaks away the joint surfaces roughen, resulting in a … Read the rest of this post »

Posted in Avoiding Injury, Knee, Senior's Health | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Exercise for osteoporosis

While reading and researching for the other posts in the Osteoporosis category,  http://www.west4thphysio.com/category/osteoporosis/ , I came across an interesting article outlining the results of a strength training program from the University of Arizona. I am often asked in my clinical work exactly which exercises are able to reliably build bone mass. The difficulty for researchers, in pinning down exactly which exercises are best at building bone density, has been a variability in results. Multiple studies have shown that aerobics, weight bearing, and resistance exercises can all maintain or increase BMD in … Read the rest of this post »

Posted in Avoiding Injury, Osteoporosis, Senior's Health, Women's Health | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Strength training can make you smarter

Recent research from the University of British Columbia (UBC) showed some interesting results in the field of strength training and cognitive benefits for seniors. There has been a lot of previous research that shows the positive effects that aerobic, cardiovascular exercise ( think walking, swimming, dancing ) plays in keeping people alert and mentally sharp into their senior years. Strength training however has not been studied from this point of view. Most strength studies concerning seniors have focused on osteoporosis and the overall effects of muscular strength improvements. In the UBC study, 155 … Read the rest of this post »

Posted in Avoiding Injury, Osteoporosis, Senior's Health | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Osteoporosis treatment

 If diet and exercise alone were enough to prevent or even reverse the changes wrought by osteoporosis, management would be fairly straight forward.  Unfortunately, that is not the case. So what are the medical implications for those diagnosed as osteoporotic? The main dangers come with falling, but even lesser forces can result in low trauma fractures which are both debilitating for the patient and costly for the health system. There are several different families of medications that can help with osteoporosis. Some work by slowing the destructive reabsorbption of bone; some help promote new bone development, some … Read the rest of this post »

Posted in Osteoporosis, Senior's Health | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments