The chronological age does not in itself represent a sufficient factor to suggest savings in physical activity, as long as it is started, continued (and then increased) gradually
Among the risk factors for heart disease is the absence or poor motor activity. It is often recommended that at least 300 minutes of moderate activity or 150 minutes of vigorous activity a week, even for older people. I ask you: what is meant by vigorous activity? Hasn’t it always been recommended, especially for older people (elderly), to engage in moderate activity? For a sixty-year-old, how might vigorous activity be framed? What can you do to keep fit after 60?
He answers Massimo Mapelli, Critical and Rehabilitative Cardiology Department, Card. Monzino, Milan (GO TO THE FORUM)
Every time I see a patient in the clinic as part of a cardiology visit, I make sure, among other things, that he has fully understood drug therapies which he must take. Often, given the extensive polytherapies that our patients are forced to follow in order to maintain a certain clinical stability and/or prevent potentially lethal accidents such as heart attacks and strokes, I find myself compiling a real multiplication table. Each row corresponds to a drug of which, box by box, the active ingredient (e.g. acetylsalicylic acid), an example of a commercial name (e.g. cardioaspirin), the dosage in milligrams (e.g. 100 mg) and the time are reported administration time (e.g. 12 noon). If necessary, they are even reported in a final box specific indications relating to the assumption of the drug such as, for example, the need or not to take it on a full stomach. In the case of the heart aspirinto point out, better before meals, contrary to the cliché of after eating devoid of any scientific evidence.
One of the most powerful therapies
How accurate, huh? Yet I’ve never seen anything like it relative to one of the most powerful therapies we have available to cure (or prevent!) cardio-cerebro-vascular diseases: physical exercise. Capsules, tablets, suppositories, syrups, vials, puffs… contain irreplaceable chemical substances for precision and effectiveness, produced in highly specialized laboratories, packaged, distributed and sold by large pharmaceutical companies complete with a leaflet. Physical exercise, on the other hand, a free aid, practicable everywhere and available to almost all of our patients, is often forgotten by doctors or, alternatively, prescribed with a metaphorical pat on the back to the patient (or his wife) accompanied by a phrase like … and move a bit, please. Difficult, therefore, to give a general advice that applies to everyone. Various factors, including the degree of previous physical training or the possible presence of concomitant pathologiesmay affect the suggested workload.
Cardiopulmonary exercise testing
So, what business to do at 60? The chronological age, although it is correlated to a physiological reduction in the body’s performance, does not in itself represent a sufficient factor to suggest savings in physical activity, as long as it is started, continued (and then increased) gradually. There is also an even more precise way to study the subject’s ability to exercise and consequently suggest an adequate and training workload. With a simple cardiopulmonary exercise testingIndeed, we are able to determine a moment known as anaerobic threshold in which our body switches from an aerobic to anaerobic metabolism. It is a ride with an incremental load in which the gases exhaled through a mask are recorded simultaneously – in addition to the pressure and the electrocardiogram. This study of ventilation, at rest and under stress, provides very important elements for diagnostic, prognostic and therapeutic purposesable to guide a correct exercise prescription, complete with a suggested heart rate.
June 22, 2023 (change June 22, 2023 | 09:30)
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