Preparing for quality, and quantity of life
It’s one thing that is an absolute certainty. Whether you want to or not, everyone gets older with each day that passes and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop it.
It sounds pretty bleak. But it doesn’t have to be.
Sure, aging might be inevitable, but there are ways to approach this stage of life that promote good health and ultimately provide both quality and quantity of life in the coming years.
“It sounds so cliché but truly a healthy lifestyle filled with proper nutrition and exercise are essential to combating the effects of age,” said Kyle Gulbranson, MD, a geriatrician with Intermountain Medical Group in St. George. “It is so much better to take care of yourself early on and reap the benefits of that lifestyle as you age.”
In Dr. Gulbranson’s experience with his patients, there are two main areas that must be addressed: the mental and the physical side. In both cases, the goal is to build up the physiological reserves in order to stave off frailty.
“Frailty is an umbrella term where the stresses and demands of everyday life become too great for a person’s physiological and psychological function,” Dr. Gulbranson said. “With that frailty, the person is more apt to fall, which can bring up a variety of other issues.”
Exercises, including those that focus on balance, are extremely important as people age, Dr. Gulbranson said. He often recommends Tai Chi, but there are many other things as well. He also highly recommends resistance training.
“Some people think that you only need to do resistance training in your teens or early adulthood when you’re trying to bulk up muscle, but it is healthy at ever age. You just have to adjust the amount of resistance to fit with your level of strength,” Dr. Gulbranson said.
As for the mental side of things, Dr. Gulbranson said it is important to continually engage the mind as you age in order to keep the neural circuits active.
“As a baby you have so many neural connections. Adulthood is pruning those connections to be able to do certain things,” Dr. Gulbranson said. “It’s like a highway. You want to keep driving it so the road stays open.”
Some suggestions for maintaining those neural pathways include reading, crossword puzzles, listening to or playing music, even aerobic exercise are all ways to engage the brain.
“Your brain needs regular stimulation,” Dr. Gulbranson said.
Along with the positive things people can do to age in a healthy way, there are several things to watch out for that may put undue strain on a person mentally and physically. One of the biggest things Dr. Gulbanson sees in the aging population is depression, often exacerbated or even caused by, isolation.
“We are seeing a lot more depression and anxiety in people, especially in the era of COVID-19,” Dr. Gulbranson said. “The longer a person is isolated, the more likely they are to develop depression and depression is a stand-alone risk factor for developing dementia.”
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So many of these things become interconnected, said Dr. Gulbranson. If a person has dementia and forgets to use their walker, they can fall and end up in the hospital. Often during hospitalization, immobility leads to other issues like urinary tract infections, sepsis or they develop another medical condition while in rehab, such as delirium.
“Delirium has just as much mortality and morbidity as a heart attack, but it is often unrecognized,” Dr. Gulbranson said. “That person with delirium has now lost some of their cognitive function and they become frailer, which sets them up for future failure.”
In many ways, Dr. Gulbranson said his heart goes out to his aging patients who are trying to wrap their arms around everything this stage of life brings. But he loves working with this demographic because he is reminded of the wisdom and experience they have to share with the younger generations.
“We all have roles to play in life,” Dr. Gulbranson said. “As we get older, that role changes, but it is just as important.”
He says he hopes he can help patients to understand that accepting their new role doesn’t mean they are giving up.
“They need to focus on what they can do, rather than what they can’t do,” Dr. Gulbranson said.
This Live Well column represents collaboration between healthcare professionals from the medical staffs of our not-for-profit Intermountain Healthcare hospitals and The Spectrum & Daily News.
