People usually see a physical therapist for pain or loss of function. Think of the person who has back pain, the injured athlete or the person who has had a stroke. They all want to improve how they move and complete tasks. Now, there is good reason to wonder if physical therapists will start seeing more people who are not in pain or having difficulty moving. Why would these people come to a physical therapist? To improve their overall health and wellness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is strong evidence suggesting that\nmovement is a valuable predictor of future health and resilience against\ndisease. Physical therapists are movement specialists, so taking advantage of\ntheir expertise makes sense if your goal is to become healthier and live\nlonger. Here are some examples of the power of movement when it comes to\npredicting future health:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gait Velocity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Gait velocity is how fast you walk. Studies\nhave shown that if your typicalwalking speed is over 1 m\/s or 3.3\nft\/s, you are likely able to complete typical daily activities independently.\nYou are also less likely to be hospitalized and less likely to have adverse\nevents like falls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If you would like to test yourself, measure\nout a straight, flat course to walk between 10′ and 30′ long. You will also\nneed 5′ or so at the beginning and the end for acceleration and deceleration.\nWalk the course at your typical speed and divide the length of the course by\nhow long it took you to walk it (distance\/time). That is your gait\nvelocity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Get On and Off the Floor<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A series of studies suggest that if you can go from standing to sitting on the floor and back to standing without using your hands, you are a lot less likely to die than someone who can not. It is called the sitting-rising test. Here is how it works:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You start standing, and without support you sit down on the floor, then stand back up. You start with a score of 10. Every time you put a hand, knee, forearm, or the side of your leg on the floor you lose 1 point. Putting a hand on your knee or thigh to help also costs a point. In a sample of over 2,000 people, they found that scoring less than 8 points made you twice as likely to die in the next 6 years when compared to people who scored higher. Score 3 or less and you are 5 times more likely to die in the same period. Overall, each point in the test is worth a 21% decrease in mortality from all causes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Notice that both gait velocity and the\nsitting-rising test are not specific to any one thing. The risk of hospitalization\nin the gait velocity studies was hospitalization for any reason. Death in the\nsitting-rising studies was death from anything. So, while we know that exercise\nand healthy lifestyle reduce your risk of specific diseases like heart disease\nor diabetes, it appears that being able to move may provide much more wide-ranging\nprotection than we previously thought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" People usually see a physical therapist for pain or loss of function. Think of the person who has back pain, the injured athlete or the person who has had a stroke. They all want to improve how they move and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":5297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13,32,35,36,63,67,73,82,84,93,95,96,98,108,113,123,131,135,136,137,138,140,144,145,147,164,165,172,182,184,196,198,199,202,204,243,250,251,2,257,271,276,278,280,289,294,303,304,305,306,372,375],"tags":[606,640,1147,1213,1219,1267,1427,1444,1445,1564,1614,1620,1625,1654,1672,1743,1768,1829,1868,1971,2172,2292,2483,2484,2490,2752,2854,3155,3414,3522,3571,3629,3676,3977,3981,4032],"yoast_head":"\n