Discussing exercise in the elderly

Due to our ageing population there is an urgent need to improve healthcare systems, deliver better community-based healthcare and to develop innovative methods/technologies for self-management of health, in parallel with promotion of healthy living and support of active ageing.

This was the focus of the AIMday Ageing meeting held at the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford in July this year. The meeting brought together healthcare researchers and practitioners to discuss key issues. Dr Tim Hardman from Niche Science & Technology Ltd attended the meeting to join the discussions. The format of the meeting involved a series of discussion workshops that focused on questions submitted to the organisers prior to the meeting.

The question “What are the best approaches to get older generations to commit to lifestyle changes that can improve their overall health and attenuated the consequences of age-related diseases?” was submitted on behalf of the MID-Frail study team. Attendees from pharma, healthcare and academia adopted a pragmatic and informal approach to achieve a successful and truly collaborative discussion of question. The approach adopted by the MID-Frail team was discussed and the overall conclusion was that the findings soon to emerge from the MID-Frail study will serve to underline importance of diet and exercise in the elderly.

Further questions surrounding frequently encountered problems that clinicians and their older patients face on a daily basis were discussed. Andy Vardes from Owen Mumford discussed with academic and clinicians the factors that drive hospital admission, types of healthcare setting and what really matters to end-of-life patient care. The potential for developing accurate tools to measure quality of life were discussed with several suggestions proposed by the attendees.