| Research Abstract |
The purposes of this project were to determine the thresholds of physical fitness necessary for living a self-supporting life in the elderly, to devise a new prescription aimed at extension of healthy life, and to evaluate this prescription for elderly individuals with life-style related disease.
Parameters of physical fitness such as muscle force, muscle mass, balance function, and flexibility gradually decrease with aging. In particular, leg muscle force and asymmetry in leg muscle force are closely related to ability to walk. Furthermore, we propose critical values for physical fitness for Japanese individuals to live an independent life without requiring care. These values for walking distance in six minutes (6MD), balance function (one-leg standing time with eyes open), flexibility, leg muscle force, leg muscle mass, and number of steps per day are 313m, 15.8sec, 7.9cm, 278N, 4.6Kg, and 2342 steps / day, respectively.
We paid attention to bicycle exercise, which is performed as exer
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cise prescription and evaluated the effects of different pedal rates of a bicycle on oxygen dynamics in exercising muscle and fat consumption. The oxygenation dosage of fat and carbohydrate during exercise increased with high pedal rate/low torque (HPLT) more than with low pedal /high torque (LPHT) at the same work-load, althoufh the rate of fat consumption as a proportion of total energy consumption in LPHT was higher, at 44.6 ± 3.5%, than that in HPLT. Therefore, the bicycle exercise with LPHT is suitable for safe exercise for elderly individuals to prevent life-style related diseases.
Furthermore, we devised a new prescription aimed at improving both leg muscle force and asymmetry in leg muscle force. Three kinds of strength training with 60% weight of maximal muscle force in weaker leg and 50% in stronger leg and walking training with 5% weight in both legs are performed. With these trainings for two months, knee extensor muscle force, asymmetry in leg muscle force, balance function, 10m obstacle gait time, and 6MD improved significantly. Therefore daily life activity at home increased without fear feeling of fall, and QOL improved.
It is considered that these trainings are useful to prevent a bedridden result from falls for elderly individuals, and to keep their healthy life. Less
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