CHHM Researcher Accolades: Featured CIHR Research Profile
Research Profile - June 2008
Balancing exercise and successful aging Physical activity - whether it's a formal exercise class, a regular round of golf or a daily routine that includes a walk around the neighbourhood - pays huge dividends for older adults.
"Exercise is really quite remarkable in how many systems it can affect," says Dr. Janice Eng, a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) New Investigator. "It can improve muscle strength and cardio-vascular health - even memory. It's been proven over and over again that we need to engage older adults in physical activity."
Dr. Eng, a professor at the University of British Columbia's Physical Therapy Department, has done impressive research on the impact of exercise on older adults. She has focused much of her attention on stroke, a leading cause of disability among older adults.
"With our first CIHR grant we did mechanistic research that showed people with stroke are much slower in terms of reflexes," says Dr. Eng. "We wanted to know what would improve these reflexes." To that end, she devised the Fitness and Mobility Exercise (FAME) Program.
For FAME, a control group of 30 older adults with strokes participated in stretching, weight-bearing exercises and walking sessions, three times a week. Another group of adults with strokes - the agility group - did what the control group was doing, plus a series of challenging, quick-reflex exercises.
For more details, please visit
http://www.cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/36342.html
