(Host) No matter what your age, you may like to hear from 82-year-old Ruth Page about some of the changes that might occur in your body even if you stay healthy, and what can be done about them.
(Page) Growing old is such an interesting process, I’m sorry I haven’t kept a journal, showing my age as I became aware of each change and did something about it. Mind you, I’m considered healthy. Ordinary aging changes come on so gradually, one may not pay attention for quite a while. Just a few years ago, I realized I had a vision problem. I had two operations to correct for cataracts. Then, and it seemed rather sudden, I realized I was asking people to repeat what they just said, and I could no longer make out the rapid-fire conversations on West Wing. So I got fitted for hearing aids.
I get my height measured during annual checkups and a couple years ago learned I’m half-an-inch shorter than the five-feet seven inches proclaimed on my driver’s license, even though I exercise regularly to protect my bones from osteoporosis. I raised my calcium intake sharply.
I think: whatever next? Balance, that’s what. It took me three nasty falls to face the problem. (I didn’t break any bones, but my right knee looks as if it had been assembled by apprentice carpenters.) Now, I have to keep my eyes on the ground as I stride along; how boring.
So it was a pleasure to read in a recent Scientific American that this, too, may be correctable. The article says, “The elderly grow wobbly in part because their nervous systems become less sensitive to the changes in foot pressure when they lean one way or another.” It adds that everyone sways a bit without realizing it, and the brain needs cues from the soles of the feet to stay balanced.
Never heard of such a thing. It’s labeled “stochastic resonance” and occurs in electronic circuits, global climate models and nerve cells. Aged humans need a faint background of random pulses to intensify weak signals sent from foot to brain. Researchers found that persons over 72, when standing on a platform of randomly vibrating nylon rods, had better balance at just the moment where they could no longer feel the pulses.
Now experts have created half-inch thick vibrating gel in-soles which markedly help balance in us oldies, and we should be able to get them put into our shoes in just a couple of years. Bio-engineer James J. Collins of Boston University points out this will be the first-ever everyday application of stochastic resonance. I went to my American Heritage Dictionary, which informed me “stochastic” means “containing a random variable.” Yep, that’s me all right.
This is Ruth Page, telling any baby boomers listening about some of the changes they’re likely to face in old age, even if they’re healthy.