The Neuromuscular System
Consider a major league pitcher, winding up, then firing a fast ball towards home plate. The ball travels at a speed close to one hundred miles per hour. The ball will be present in the strike zone for one, one hundredth of a second.
The batter watches the pitcher deliver; the muscle in his eyes focus on the ball, his brain calculates the speed and height of the ball and his body position. At the correct instant of time, his brain, tells his neuromuscular system to swing in one supreme effort to reverse the direction of the ball as it passes over home plate. The human brain and the well trained neuromuscular system fire perhaps millions of highly coordinated human muscle cells in a fraction of a second.
Forty, fifty, sixty years have pasted since the event took place. Do you think this once highly synchronized body could duplicate this effort? His drive and desire may still live in the aged body; however those neuromuscular connection fell into disuse. The body did not use them, and they simply went away.
The above is an example of a highly coordinated activity this person was capable of performing. Over time, and through disuse, the batter lost those acquired skills. Now consider another person who has aged. Along life’s path they developed skills to bike, to run, to roller blade. Thousands of highly complex neuromuscular muscle adapted to his environment and life style, but over time, just as the batter had, his body fell into disuse.
The balance required for walking, once lost, could be difficult to reacquire. It is that simple.
Aging and Loss of Balance
The human being has a wealth of positive physical attributes. Many of these characteristics are not fully appreciated until aging has a detrimental effect upon their qualities. The gradual loss of memory, vision and physical mobility become apparent as we age. The slow loss of the ability to balance and the related muscle mass are some of the physical attributes we also lose. We hear the words, “I can’t do what I use to do physically,” more and more as the aging process takes place in those around us.
In our society today, many people follow a pattern of little or no physical exercise. A condition known as Sarcopenia starts at the approximate age of forty. Sarcopenia is defined as the slow wasting away of one’s muscle mass. The estimation for Sarcopenia’s progress is .5% loss of the body’s muscle mass per year after forty. At the approximate age of 60, the loss is estimated to increases to 1% per year.
How do these numbers relate to the loss of balance with the aging individual? The muscle mass first lost in the human body is in the lower extremities. These are the muscle groups used to correct when the brain detects an in-balance and a fall may occur. It is estimated that thirty percent of people age of sixty five or over will experience a potential harmful fall cause by physiological in-balances.
The solution(s) for human physiological imbalance problems are not difficult to find. Strength Training, Tai Chi and dance are all forms of exercises offered through many community organizations. The human body will respond to many form of exercise to regain muscle mass and re-establish those balance muscle.
