Question: is there a difference between people older than 65 to people younger bodies whilst doing exersizy, if there is why do you mostly record people over the age of 65?

Siana Jones answered on 17 Nov 2015:

Hi Zoemma, this is a great question.

Yes, there are differences in older bodies during exercise. There are lots of reasons why older folks are unable to as much exercise as young folks. Examples that I see regularly in the clinic are: arthritic pain (sore knees and hips mostly), cardiac problems (unstable angina is particularly dangerous), lung disease & lack of motivation.

My research is interested in muscle function as it is likely that this declines with aging. In particular, the ability of muscle to use oxygen effectively is likely to change as we get older (or in the presence of disease) and this will result in the onset of muscle fatigue being sooner during exercise which will make the person want to stop and rest. It is interesting that this happens in older people even if there is no disease and, what’s even more interesting, is that there is a theory that this process can effect the onset of disease (i.e. make it more likely that someone will develop a cardiac disease). We don’t know very much about this at the moment which is why I’m interested in studying people over 65 with and without disease to see if there are any differences in the way their muscles use oxygen.