Thursday, April 22, 2010

Martial Arts Training for the Elderly

From Science Daily: A new study reveals that martial arts training may be the key to helping osteoporosis patients fall more safely.

Brenda Groen worked with a team of researchers from the Sint Maartenskliniek, Nijmegen, to study the effects of fall training in six healthy people. She said, "For obvious safety reasons, this could not be directly assessed using persons with osteoporosis. Therefore, we measured the hip impact forces during the martial arts fall exercises in a group of young adults. Based on our results, however, we believe that fall training would be safe for persons with osteoporosis if they wear hip protectors during the training, perform fall exercises on a thick mattress, and avoid forward fall exercises from a standing position"

Interesting...

4 comments:

FredInChina said...

Mammamia Michele... Which insurer is going to sell an appropriate police and at what price?
Would it be simpler to train them NOT to fall?
I wonder...
osu!

Rick Matz said...

When my late mother was in a nursing home, I saw close up what human train wrecks we could become. It underscored my desire to develop a practice that would be engaging enough to keep me interested and moderate enough to allow me to participate will into my advanced years.

Colin Wee said...

Hopefully I make it to become an 'elderly' person. The way I'm training ... is KILLING ME!!! :-)

Sue C said...

Hi Michele, apparently a lot of elderly people fall because their hip fractures (pathological fracture) rather than fall and then break their hip, so teaching them to fall might not prevent their hips from fracturing. It might prevent a wrist fracture as well though!