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Fitness & Exercise for Senior Citizens
Poorest Older Adults Most Likely to Feel Limits to
Physical Activity
All under 85, even with incomes 6 times poverty
level, much more likely to report functional limitations than wealthiest group
August 21, 2006 "Sometimes life just beats you
down," may be more fact than excuse. If you are old and poor, you are
also far more likely to feel limited in doing basic physical activities
climbing stairs, lifting objects than are your wealthier peers. The
Americans in this study were both boomers and senior citizens ages 55 to 84. The study also finds that
people 55 to 64, who are living below the poverty level, are six times
more likely than the wealthiest group to say they have functional
limitations.
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The research is published in the August 17, 2006,
issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, and was conducted by the
National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of
Health, in collaboration with the University of California, Berkeley,
and the University of Toronto.
The researchers report that those living below the
poverty line are the most likely to say they have functional
limitations, and, up to age 84, the odds of having such limitations
drops with each incremental increase in income. They also note that
older people are less likely to report functional limitations with each
increase in educational level, a measure that is closely tied to income.
We found that a gradient of disability exists
across the full socioeconomic spectrum, as functional limitations proved
inversely related to household income, says senior author Jack M.
Guralnik, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the NIAs Laboratory of Epidemiology,
Demography and Biometry.
Improved understanding of the relationship between
socioeconomic status and disability is critical as the U.S. population
ages, Guralnik notes. The rate of disability decreased 1 to 2 percent
annually during the 1980s and 1990s, when trends were last reported, and
the rate of decline was smaller among those in the poorest socioeconomic
groups.
Guralnik and co-authors Meredith Minkler, D.P.H.,
University of California, Berkeley, and Esme Fuller-Thomson, Ph.D.,
University of Toronto, analyzed data for more than 335,000
community-dwelling people 55 and older who participated in the Census
2000 Supplementary Survey.
Nearly one in four respondents reported having a
functional limitation, defined as a long-lasting condition that
substantially limits one or more basic physical activities, such as
walking, climbing stairs, reaching, lifting or carrying.
Functional limitation differences by income level
were evident among those 55 to 64 years, 65 to 74 years, and 75 to 84
years, but differed more dramatically in the younger age groups.
Among all respondents under age 85, even those
whose incomes were at six times the poverty threshold had significantly
higher odds of reporting functional limitations, compared with the
wealthiest group.
The poverty threshold in 2000, the year the data
were collected, was $8,259 for a person age 65 or older who lived alone
and $17,761 for a four-person household. The highest income category
used in the analysis 700 percent or more of the poverty line began
at $57,813 for an older adult living alone and $124,327 for a
four-person household.
The research was supported by the Retirement
Research Foundation and the NIA. The NIA leads the federal effort
supporting and conducting research on aging and the medical, social and
behavioral issues of older people. For more information on research and
aging, go to
www.nia.nih.gov.
Publications on research and on a variety of topics
of interest on health and aging can be viewed and ordered by visiting
the NIA Web site, or can be ordered by calling toll free 1-800-222-2225.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) The
Nation's Medical Research Agency includes 27 Institutes and Centers
and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic,
clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the
causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For
more information about NIH and its programs, visit
www.nih.gov.
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