Exercise is important. We all know that by now. There are commercials about the necessity of healthy exercise on television, there are ads in magazines, and even billboards on the highways talking about how exercise is the best thing that you can do. What you might not know is how extensive the research is behind this, backing up just how vital exercise is for your health. Ranging from diabetes to Alzheimer’s disease, there are many studies that confirm that lifelong exercise has a positive impact upon the health of seniors.
A new study has once again confirmed the importance of exercise. This time, the study focused on stroke victims and how a good exercise routine can speed up improvements to brain functioning after a stroke has occurred. Researchers have not found a course of medications that can help to improve cognitive functioning after a stroke, but exercise has now been linked to improvement here. This is encouraging news once you consider that about 85 percent of stroke survivors have some sort of cognitive impairment after the fact.
One of the big benefits of exercise is that it is a very low cost treatment. Medications and therapies can be extremely expensive, but exercise costs almost nothing. The study found that physical therapy, aerobic, and strength training were all effective ways to help stroke patients restore cognitive ability.
A lot of people believe that by the time someone is in their senior years, exercise becomes pointless and that there are no benefits that can be gained from it. In the above mentioned stroke recovery study, doctors were able to see noticeable gains in as little as 12 weeks when it came to cognitive improvement. Some patients showed signs of improvement in as little as four weeks. Cognitive decline can occur for quite a while after a stroke occurs, and exercise can reverse this.
Another exciting thing that was taken away from this study was the fact that researchers found that even those individuals in the chronic stroke phase benefited from exercise. This qualifies as someone who has been recovering for more than three months. While strokes are difficult, and the recovery process is a trying time, this shows that it is never too late to begin exercising. For our elderly loved ones, this is an encouraging bit of news.
When a loved one has had a stroke, the recovery process can be long and painful process. Finding things to help make it a little easier like introducing exercise can go a very long way. This can be true of any disability that your elderly parent has. And if you’re struggling to provide adequate care for a loved one who has suffered a stroke, look into our in-home care services to see if we may be of assistance. In-home care is what we do, and this can help to improve not just the quality of your mom or dad’s life, but your entire family’s. Give us a call to schedule a free consultation.
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