Thursday, March 27, 2014

News: Research from Institute of Exercise and Health Sciences at University of Basel


Dear readers, we would like to inform you about interesting research.

Scientists from Institute of Exercise and Health Sciences at University of Basel in Switzerland conducted a research about effects of stair-climbing on balance, gait, strength, resting heart rate, and submaximal endurance. 39 seniors with average age of 70,5 completed this experiment.
As it is mentioned in the research paper: "Fall-related injuries in seniors seriously contribute to increasing health care utilizations and expenditures (Stevens et al., 2006). Aging-induced declines of strength, endurance, and balance performance have been reported to mainly account for severe fall events (Lord, 2007). Prospective studies revealed that higher levels of general physical activity may reduce overall morbidity and mortality (Bembom et al., 2009) as well as the risk of falling between 30% and 50% in seniors (Gillespie et al., 2012). Seniors should, thus, be encouraged to maintain or increase habitual physical activity levels (Chodzko-Zajko et al., 2009). In this regard, multimodal training regimens including strength, balance, and endurance tasks are considered important to reduce the risk of fatal and nonfatal falls as well as chronic cardiovascular and metabolic disease (Gardner et al., 2000)." (Gardner et al., 2000)." (Donath, L., O. Faude, R. Roth a L. Zahner, 2014)
In this case, even everyday activity like climbing a staircase instead of using an elevator can help. Results of three groups were compared – group of one- (taking every step, INT1) or twostep strategy (every second step, INT2) and a control group (CON). Maximal strength and explosive power did not improve significantly (0.10 < < 0.78). Resting heart rate was significantly reduced in INT2 (-8/min) compared with INT1 (0/min, = 0.02) and CON (0/min, = 0.03). Compared with CON, perceived exertion for all intensities (0.007 < < 0.03) and submaximal exercise heart rate during moderate uphill walking significantly decreased (-11/min; < 0.05) in INT2. Step counts for forward beam balancing (4.5 cm width) increased in INT(= 0.007) compared with CON.
With more pronounced effects in INT2, stair-climbing significantly improved resting and exercise heart rates, perceived exertion, and dynamic balance performance in healthy seniors and may contribute to better overal fitness, reduced fall risk, and less perceived strain during daily life  activities. From this you can see that even a small effort to change your way of living can lead to significant results.

Source:
DONATH, L., O. FAUDE, R. ROTH a L. ZAHNER. Effects of stair-climbing on balance, gait, strength, resting heart rate, and submaximal endurance in healthy seniors. Scandinavian Journal of Medicine [online]. 2014, vol. 24, issue 2, e93-e101 [cit. 2014-03-27]. DOI: 10.1111/sms.12113. Available from: http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/sms.12113

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