As people get older, they can develop chronic diseases, disabilities, and frailty.
Frailty can affect up to half of the people who are 80 years old or older, so preventing and managing it is important for public health and medical care.
One way to help prevent and manage frailty is through yoga, which can improve balance and mobility in older adults.
Yoga is a form of exercise and meditation that has been practiced for thousands of years. It has become increasingly popular in recent years due to its numerous health benefits, both physical and mental.
A team of researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School reviewed 33 studies involving 2,384 people who were 65 years old or older.
They looked at the impact of yoga-based exercises on frailty in older adults. They measured different things like how fast people could walk, how strong their hands and legs were, and how well they could balance.
The researchers found that yoga helped improve how fast people could walk and how strong their lower body was compared to people who didn’t do any exercise or just learned about health.
However, yoga didn’t seem to help with balance or hand strength as much.
There wasn’t one style of yoga that worked better than the others, but the researchers suggest a style called Iyengar might be good for older adults because it can be personalized for them to do at home.
This study adds to other research that shows yoga can help older adults stay healthy and prevent frailty.
If you’re an older adult, you might consider trying yoga to improve your balance and mobility.
If you’re a medical professional, you might recommend yoga to your older patients to help them stay healthy and prevent frailty.
If you care about wellness, please read studies about a big cause of muscle weakness in older people, and these vitamins could help reduce bone fracture risk.
For more information about wellness, please see recent studies that Vitamin E can prevent muscle damage after a heart attack, and eating yogurt is linked to lower frailty in older people.
The study was conducted by Julia Loewenthal et al and published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
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