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This week the NY Times reprinted an article about balance training, which is probably an overlooked area of concern for many people, whether they have Parkinson’s or not.
From the article:
“Balance training is an important but often-neglected skill, one that impacts both our longevity and our quality of life, beginning around age 40. A study in June by a Brazilian team found that 20 percent of the 1,700 older adults tested couldn’t balance on one leg for 10 seconds or more. And that inability to balance was associated with a twofold risk of death from any cause within 10 years.”
Well, that’s scary…but there’s more:
“Falls are the second leading cause of unintentional injury deaths worldwide, yet doctors don’t have an easy way to check balance, like they do blood pressure or pulse. In this test, which can be done in less than a minute, the patient gets three attempts to do a 10-second one-legged stand on either leg.
“’The idea here was just to come up with a really simple test that might be an indication of a person’s ability to balance,’ said Dr. Jonathan Myers, a professor at Stanford University, researcher at the Palo Alto VA Health Care System and an author of the balance study. He said the inability to perform this task was powerfully predictive of mortality. In the study, one in five people could not manage it.”
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As I understand it, balance training should be combined with weight training. Strong muscles in your legs, abdomen, glutes and feet can improve your ability to balance on one foot. If you’re practicing this at home, play it safe by having a chair near you that you can hold on to if you start to list too much in any direction.
When I work out at home, I often spend an hour doing yoga poses, planks, and stretching exercises, and at the very end I balance on one foot for as long as I can.
In the video below, you can see me balance on one foot for about 40 seconds. I’m facing into our bathroom, which has a huge wall of mirror. To keep myself steady, I focus on the reflection of my eyes in the bathroom mirror. (Actually, I focus on just my right eyebrow.) But if I’m not at home, I just look for an object about 10 or 15 feet away from me, and stare at that as I balance on one foot.
I find balance training enjoyable, and the more I do it, the better I get at it.
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BTW, I suggest you visit the actual article in the NY Times, becasue it contains a great set of exercises that you can do at home. Try them all!
