Abstrakt

Introduction: Muscle loss is a disease in elderly individuals, and is associated with increasing loss of muscle mass, muscle strength, and muscle function. Along with the severity of muscle loss, an increased frailty is evident. The consequences of an increased frailty are age-related reduced resilience and reduced strength conditions and following this, a substantial loss of quality of life. The onset and progression of aging processes can be positively influenced by physical training, which helps to prevent the decline in neuromuscular capacity. There is consensus that hypertrophy training focusing on the training of situation specific movement tasks of the individual muscle groups is recommended. Purpose: In this study we demonstrated that multimodal therapy is an efficient alternative intervention to strengthen the back muscles and by this to increase muscle growth in the areas of extension and flexion as well as lateralization and rotation on both sides. Materials and methods: 106 patients aged between 50 and 65 including 49 males and 57 females with a main diagnosis of back disease were examined prospectively. They completed a 3-week inpatient multimodal therapy program. Effects of the program were assessed by applying two isometric strength measurements of the back muscles. Baseline measurement (T1) was done on the first day of the program and post measurement (T2) on the last day of therapy. The results were described by means of SPSS as mean (M) and standard deviation (SD). The normal distribution was verified (Shapiro-Wilk-test). Results: Clear improvements in the strength of both genders are evident in all directions. In addition the results indicate, that as the age progresses, the expression on the listed variables decreases, but the gain in strength between times T1 and T2 increase. Discussion and conclusion: It could be shown that even a multimodal therapy program leads to an increase in strength. Since pure hypertrophy training is a great challenge, especially for the elderly, the multimodal therapy concepts promising approach to facilitate the often difficult start to the treatment of sarcopenia. A significant weakness of the study is the lack of a control group. Further research with more sophisticated study designs (e.g., RCT) is necessary in order to learn more about this alternative intervention to treat sarcopenia.

Autoreninformation

Autoren

• A. Pietsch¹
• E. Hartinger²
• F. Schombach¹
• H. Riepenhof¹

Abteilungen

• ¹ Sportprävention, Sportrehabilitation, BG Klinikum Hamburg,
• ² Berufsgenossenschaft für Wohlfahrt und Gesundheit, Bezirksverwaltung Hamburg

Adresse

Dr. med. Aki Pietsch
Sportprävention, Sportrehabilitation
BG Klinikum Hamburg
Bergedorfer Straße 10
21033 Hamburg
Email: [email protected]

Citation