В Австралии объявлен первый Национальный день силы для борьбы с возрастной слабостью

New national day for muscle strength Health promotion charity Strong Australia is launching with a new national day to encourage Australians to engage in strength training to stay strong, independent and healthy as they age. Strong Australia – a new health promotion charity – is celebrating its launch by establishing an inaugural National Strength Day to encourage Australians to stay stronger for longer. The launch was celebrated on Thursday evening at a joint event hosted by Strong Australia and the University of Sydney’s Community and Primary Health Care Network, Strong Together: An Evening with Strong Australia and CPHCN. Formed by Dr Coralie Wales after watching her mother struggle with frailty, Strong Australia’s mission is to make strength a national priority and help Australians stay healthy and independent. “I’m a believer that things have to grow from small starts, and this is our first year,” Dr Wales told Australian Ageing Agenda. The launch event recognises this need to start small, with Dr Wales saying it will facilitate conversation between experts and community members about what the benefits of strength training are. “Because our challenge in the next few years is going to be to get out there with some of the mythology of this, because you talk to anybody that’s, say, 60 and over, and they look like they’re not travelling all that well, and they probably will say, ‘well, I’m too old to worry about that now’,” she told AAA. “Or they’ll say, ‘oh, I’ve got an injury, I can’t do any strength training because I might hurt myself.’ And they’re mistakes, [it’s] just such mistaken thinking, because that leads people into increasing levels of muscle weakness to the extent where they can’t do stuff that’s important to them, and then that’s a slippery slope.” Alongside facilitating conversation around the importance of muscle strength, Dr Wales said Strong Australia’s goal with National Strength Day is to start building up a coalition of experts, with the community, and improve access to muscle strength training initiatives. A researcher herself, Dr Wales said that looking at the issue from a community member’s perspective, there is too much jargon surrounding muscle strength and it is pushing older people away from engagement. “I don’t want to be bedazzled with fancy words, I want somebody to speak to me so that I can understand what they’re saying, and I’m old enough and confident enough that I will challenge people if they start coming out with words I don’t understand,” she told AAA. “But where’s the responsibility for communicating that complex stuff? I think it’s with the providers.” Part of this is breaking down the barriers in how people engage with older people about strength training, and ensuring teams are supporting older Australians to continue engaging with it. “We have to hold hands with the experts,” Dr Wales told AAA. Not enough Australians engaging with muscle strength training Around 73 per cent of Australian adults do not meet the national recommendation of muscle-strengthening activities on at least two days of the week, and while Australia currently spends around $270.5 billion on healthcare every year, just 2 per cent is invested in public health. Of this 2 per cent, only a small proportion (less than $1 billion) is dedicated to supporting prevention of conditions like frailty. Strong Australia is hoping to get muscle strength recognised as a fundamental part of the prevention agenda. Dr Wales said that watching her mum gradually lose her strength was “heartbreaking.” “I remember the day Mum told me she no longer had the strength to get in and out of bed, so she decided to sleep in her chair instead. Like many Australians, I assumed this was simply what ageing looked like, but I later realised that while ageing is inevitable, losing strength doesn’t have to be,” she said. “Strong Australia exists because we want Australians to understand that strength isn’t about appearance or athletic performance. It’s about having the physical capacity to keep doing the things that matter most throughout life.” Frailty is also expensive, costing nearly $131 million per year more for nearly 40,000 frail people compared with an equivalent non-frail cohort. Dr Wales said she hopes National Strength Day will become an annual reminder that strength is fundamental to healthy ageing and something that should be valued throughout life. “We spend a lot of time talking about living longer. We also need to be talking about living stronger. If we can help Australians maintain their strength for longer, we’ll improve not only individual health and wellbeing but help people continue living the lives they want for as long as possible,” she said. Maintaining muscle essential to healthy ageing General practitioner and Sydney University Associate Dean for Community and Primary Health Care Professor Meredith Makeham said maintaining muscle strength should be a routine part of preventative healthcare. “Maintaining muscle strength is fundamental to healthy ageing. It helps people remain independent, recover from illness and continue doing the things that matter most. As Australia’s population ages, maintaining muscle strength should be a routine focus of preventive healthcare,” Professor Makeham said. Strength training is among the most effective health interventions available, said Dr Jackson Fyfe, an exercise scientist expert and senior lecturer in strength and conditioning sciences at Deakin University. “Strength training isn’t just for athletes or younger people. It’s one of the most effective ways people of all ages can improve their health, maintain their independence and enjoy a better quality of life,” Dr Fyfe said. Read more news here Follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook, get our free newsletter and subscribe to AAA magazine for the full aged care picture