Can we predict longevity? Here is a great inspiration to start the new year, Steve B, a fighter in Rock Steady Boxing Portland. He has learned to get up and down off the ground without use of hands. This is no easy feat. It takes balance, strength and flexibility. Steve worked to be able to do this and yes, Steve has Parkinson’s Disease. You can hear him in the clip say one side is easier than the other. Obviously for someone with PD it’s going to be more difficult on his PD affected side, but I have taught many people without PD to do this over the years, and everyone has a more difficult side.
I can help teach you this task through upcoming blog posts, let’s all strive to get better at this!!
This simple test that looks at how easy — or difficult — it is for you to sit down on the floor and then get back up may help predict your longevity.
Middle-aged and elderly people who needed to use both hands and knees to get up and down were almost seven times more likely to die within six years, compared to those who could spring up and down without support, according to research. While the most important factor controlling the ease of getting down and then up is the ratio of muscle power to body weight, there are “other very relevant issues including body flexibility, balance, and motor coordination,” said Claudio Gil Soares de Araújo, a professor at Gama Filho University in Rio de Janeiro who worked on the study.
Ultimately the test gives a quick window into a patient’s ability to function from day to day.
“Moving, for the average person, especially those who are older, and the ability to rise from the floor is very much relevant for autonomy,” Araújo said. “Imagine if your glasses went below the bed. You would need to sit on the floor to reach them and then you would need to rise.”
The researchers followed 2,002 adults, ages 51 to 80, for an average of 6.3 years. Sixty-eight percent were men. At the outset, each study volunteer was asked to sit down on the floor and then get up, using the least amount of support from hands, knees and other body parts.
Getting off the floor
The volunteers could score five points if they could sit down without touching their knees, legs, hands, or arms on the floor and another five points if they could get back up unaided.
They lost a point for each body part that was leaned on while getting down or up. So, people who could get down touching the floor with just one knee scored four points. If they needed to touch a hand and a knee on the floor as they were rising, they would lose two points for a score of three. If the volunteers looked wobbly on the way down or up, they lost half a point. The most agile ended up with a combined score of 10 while those who couldn’t get down or up at all were scored with a zero.
During the course of the study 159 of the volunteers died, with the majority of the deaths in the group that had the most trouble getting up and down.
A person’s score matched well with longevity. Are you a 10?
Zero to 3 People with this score were 6.5 times as likely to die during the course of the study, compared to people who scored from 8 to 10.
3.5 to 5 Those who had scores of 3.5 to 5.5 were 3.8 times as likely to die as the high scorers
6 to 7.4 1.8 times more likely to die than those with the highest scores.
10 The highest score. “Just two subjects that scored 10 died in the follow-up of about six years,” says Araújo. If someone between the ages of 51 and 80 scores 10, “the chances of being alive in the next six years are quite good,” he said. The study was published in European Journal of Preventive Cardiology in 2012.
* If you can’t view the clip, please go to my website under “blog” , You’ll get to see Steve getting up and down without the use of his hands.