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Exercise helps improve balance, prevent falls | exercise, balance, seniors

Exercise helps improve balance, prevent falls | exercise, balance, seniors - Getting Fit - Victorville Daily Press

Exercise is the single most important component in maintaining healthy balance and preventing falls. In fact, exercise is so effective in not only reducing fall risk but also eliminating many types of chronic dizziness. The main question is "What kind of exercise works best?"

Not all exercises are equal. Many seniors mistakenly assume that walking is the best form of exercise. Although walking is extremely important for mobility, cardiovascular and joint health, it also has major limitations.

A recent study looked at seniors who walk in the mall for exercise. The group used walking as their only source of exercise and averaged 1 to 2 miles a day, four days a week. The results showed that this group had the same amount of falls as sedentary seniors. What went wrong? Absolutely nothing. These seniors did enjoy health benefits such as lowered blood pressure, improved cardiac and lung function, and less arthritic pain. But when their balance was tested there was no change in balance control.

The best exercise for balance. Research has shown that exercise such as Tai Chi, dancing, bicycle riding, group exercise classes and weight training done in the standing position share a theme — dynamic, challenging positions and poses while engaging large balance sensory control systems. Exercises that are not so good for balance include walking on flat surfaces, pool exercises and universal weight machines.

Article continued at the link above............

New Rail Trail Could Potentially Cripple Traffic in Salem NH

Dave has shared the following blogpost from Salem Patch:
	New Rail Trail Could Potentially Cripple Traffic in Salem The Planning Board held a hearing on Tuesday.... By Tom Linehan I thought you might be interested in this Blog Post from the Salem Patch. The hearing on the rail trail posed more questions than it answered. Read more »

PRISON BREAK: 1,600 Turtles Break Out Of Farm, Slowly Crawl To Freedom

On the lighter side today! No soup for you!

It's like a real-life version of the movie "Chicken Run," only without Mel Gibson and much, much slower. Near Summerville, Georgia, there is a turtle farm. Thousands of adult turtles, all native species to the southern United States, live in ponds on the property. Thanks to vandals or scrap metal thieves, breaks in the fence have allowed the turtles to wander off the property, taking up residence in surrounding waterways. The operation is something like a hatchery, and about 1,600 of the 2,200 turtles that form its breeding stock have run away.

The owner of this particular farm, one of only three in Georgia, started out in pest control and is descended from trappers. He started out trapping turtles for food, then learned how to farm them. The goal is to catch adult turtles, then confine them to the property. They live presumably happy turtle lives, reproducing and laying eggs on land surrounding their ponds. The farmer's family then gathers up the eggs and hatches them indoors. Some of the hatchlings are shipped to China and raised as food; others go to pet distributors in the United States.

The farm's owner is currently moving his operation to a new property, and is happy to pick up nuisance turtles for free and give them a new home. But the global turtle market is weak. A baby snapping turtle sold for about $14 a year ago, but fetches only $7 today.