Aged Care

You can’t outlive life but you sure can stretch it out.

by Stuart Andrews

This is subject that is very dear to my heart, having seen both my parents contending with chronic movement-based issues. I watched my mother battle with a very aggressive cancer that greatly impeded her ability to perform the most basic of movement patterns and my father then had a heart attack.

It was during this period that that the whole concept for the Lower Limber^® Sequential Stretching and Activation System was born. Watching my parents’ struggles made me realise that we should be asking not “what can I do for you?” but “what can you do for yourself?” and giving people the ability to get themselves moving.

In my rehabilitation clinic, I’ve witnessed this on a daily basis. Too often, the whole aged-care focus is on symptom relief, when the preparation phase should begin in our youth and be carried forward into our more senior years. Of course, even in our senior years it’s not too late to make positive change.

The human body is highly adaptive and can show our brains that real and sustainable change can be made. Unfortunately we all too often self limit by resigning ourselves to the fact that our best years have passed us by. As a result we reduce our activity levels and replace feeling with our bodies with negative thought process that can literally stop us in our tracks.

The physical and mental processes associated with aging are unequivocally linked. Both need to keep moving in a positive way, because what you think and feel is what literally moves you. It is often said that a “healthy mind equals a healthy body” but I would argue that it is, in fact, a “healthy body equals a healthy mind”, for without movement everything stands still.

The number of people in Australia over 65 years of age is expected to double in the next 40 years to 8.8 million (AIHW Oct 19 2017). Sadly, the focus seems to be on managing these older people, where the real focus should be on teaching them to manage themselves where possible. This means helping to create independence, not fuelling dependence on a model that is already under-resourced and stretched to the limit.

From a practical point of view, if people are mobile and can move around then their level of independence remains intact. Not being able to perform basic tasks such as walking and sitting up and down are often attributed to the aging process when, in fact, it is largely a result of neglect.

The Lower Limber^® Sequential Stretching and Activation System has put in place simple physical indicators, nominating appropriate entry points (zones) for people to begin reestablishing or maintaining an appropriate range of movement. It has been my observation over the years that people (both young and old) can become overwhelmed by not knowing where to start or how to start. As a result the lack of movement tends to be more a thought-based limitation rather than a movement-based one. The answer is simply to make those entry points clear and concise.

This is where the Lower Limber^® Sequential Stretching and Activation System is not merely an apparatus. It’s a way to implement a progressive movement-based system based on getting in touch with your body again and maximising the efficiency of your overall movement patterns. Design features, such as only half the applied forces being transferred to the hands while performing the various stretching exercises, are important where grip strength and arthritic issues often limit the ability of the elderly to coordinate the arms, legs and the spine in a meaningful and practical way.

The Lower Limber^® Sequential Stretching and Activation System doesn’t rely on big movement patterns to facilitate positive physical change. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. The way the system has been designed makes it possible to perform relatively small movements in a controlled and uniform manner. This leads to significant physical changes in a relatively short period of time.

The Lower Limber^® Sequential Stretching and Activation Systems has a unique ability to make all your limbs move in a coordinated manner while your spine is actively engaged and supported. The sum of all these relatively small movement patterns not only increases your range of movement but allows you to experience a sense of wellbeing. That’s something that’s often overlooked as a key consideration in the self-management issues associated with the aging process.