Pulmonary rehabilitation programs have been shown to increase functional exercise capacity and calibre of life in COPD patients. However, following the completion of pulmonary rehabilitation the benefits begin to decline unless the program is of longer duration or ongoing maintenance exercise is followed. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine if supervised, weekly, hospital-based exercise compared to home exercise will maintain the benefits gained from an eight-week pulmonary rehabilitation program in COPD subjects to twelve months.
Following completion of an eight-week pulmonary rehabilitation program, COPD subjects will be recruited and randomised (using concealed allocation in numbered envelopes) into either the maintenance exercise group (supervised, weekly, hospital-based exercise) or the control group (unsupervised home exercise) and followed for twelve months. Measurements will be taken at baseline (post an eight-week pulmonary rehabilitation program), three, six and twelve months.
The exercise measurements will include two six-minute achievement tests, two incremental shuttle achievement tests, and two endurance shuttle achievement tests. Oxygen saturation, heart rate and dyspnoea will be monitored during all these tests. Quality of life will be measured using the St George’s Respiratory Questionnaire and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale. Participants will be excluded if they require supplemental oxygen or have neurological or musculoskeletal co-morbidities that will prevent them from exercising independently.
The fact is that it is easier to psyche yourself up for your weight training exercise when you do go to the gym. With all of those people around you dedicating their time to getting in shape, there is just no way you will feel like slacking off in your weight training program while you are at the gym. Many gyms even have individualized fitness trainers available, who will help you to meet your individualized best, by working you harder than you will yourself, and helping to chart your goals. They can even suggest which weight training exercises you should use and how many, to strengthen the muscle groups which interest you. For more details visit http://www.soundbodytrainer.com
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Adults who do not strength train lose between 5-7 pounds of muscle every decade. Although endurance exercise improves our cardiovascular fitness, it does not prevent the loss of muscle tissue. Only strength exercise maintains our muscle mass and strength throughout our mid-life and senior years.
During the past few years more and more studies have shown that sensible strength training produces many health and fitness benefits especially for older adults. Key research studies, such as those conducted at Tufts University, the University of Maryland and the South Shore YMCA, have provided a wealth of data on the positive physiological responses to basic programs of strength exercise. Based on presently acquirable research, consider the following thirteen reasons why every older adult should perform regular strength exercise.
Most adults do not perform Strength Exercise, they need to first replace the muscle tissue that has been lost through inactivity. Fortunately, research shows that a standard strength training program can increase muscle mass by about 3 pounds over an 8-week training period. This is the typical training response for men and women who do 25 minutes of strength exercise 2 or 3 days per week, and represents an excellent return on a time-efficient investment.
Research reveals that adding 3 pounds of muscle increases our resting metabolic rate by 7 percent, and our regular calorie requirements by 15 percent. At rest, a pound of muscle requires about 35 calories per day for tissue maintenance, and during exercise muscle energy utilization increases dramatically. Adults who replace muscle through sensible strength exercise use more calories all day long, thereby reducing the likelihood of fat accumulation. For more details visit http://www.soundbodytrainer.com
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For big legs, you’ll want to do a lot of barbell squats and dead lifts. The resistance you are putting on your legs when you perform these types of exercises will near your muscles to make them grow. That’s the point of an intense workout program in the first place. Lifting weights with your legs instead of your arms will help the quadriceps and hamstrings become tight and fit.
When working your arms, the body building exercises you should count on will consist a lot of barbell and dumbbell curls and well as bench presses. It’s cushy when performing these exercises to just concentrate on lifting the weights, but what you really need to do is focus on the strain the weights are putting on your arm muscles. Really near them as you are lifting and feel how they are working in response.
Great abs are formed much in the same way as any other muscle group. They need to be worked, strained, and pushed in order to become toned. You can get that toned, sculpted look by doing simple sit ups and crunches, but weights can help too. Try hanging from a chin up bar and lifting your knees up, or get on a organisation specially designed to tone the ab muscles.
When working the upper back, a pull-down bar organisation will make all the difference in the world. This is a two handled curved bar that is attached to weights with a pulley system. You pull the bar down with your shoulders behind you.
It’s important when choosing body building exercises that you pick the ones that you are physically healthy to do. Then be very conscious of the way the exercise is supposed to be performed. If you don’t pay special attention to your form, you risk injury which can set back your body building program significantly. For more details visit http://www.soundbodytrainer.com
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Kundalini yoga is the divine energy within apiece person. Kundalini yoga is the energy that gives us life the same energy that gives life to the universe. Kundalini yoga is represented as a “coiled serpent” in the chakra at the base of the spine in apiece human the serpentine divinity who sleeps within apiece individual until awakened. The three coils of the serpent represent prana kundalini (the energy that gives the physical body life), chitta kundalini (the energy of our mind/emotions), and para kundalini (the energy of our spiritual self). As the energy that lies dormant in apiece mortal is released, it moves up the spine, activating the psychic mechanism. Deeper awareness and consciousness is experienced in the unfolding of and flow between those chakras.
Kundalini yoga is the rising of the kundalini, piercing and releasing the awareness within apiece chakra that cuts through our tensions, blocks, ignorance, and ego. Ultimately, the kundalini moves up through all of the major chakras and rests in the chakra at the top of head, called the sahasrara chakra. This is the Sacred Space where we become completely aware of our total unity with the Divine. Shaktipat means the descent of grace, or transmission of energy, and it is a vitally important presence in the awakening of the kundalini and Shaktipat can be received from the teacher in four primary ways through look, touch, thought, and word. In the Tantric tradition shaktipat is understood to be the highest form of spiritual initiation, providing the initiate with immediate access to the divine energy dwelling within.
Kundalini yoga is the fire that ignites and sustains the release and rising of the kundalini. Shaktipat activates the process through which a human being recognizes the intrinsic unbounded love that already dwells within their own heart. It is that love that finally reveals the secrets of our existence and our experience of the unity in all of life. Kundalini is the energy of life, or the Divine, as it is experienced in the individual.
Shaktipat is that same energy, transmitted from the teacher, which awakens that awareness within the student. Kundalini is the power of life; shaktipat is the switch that turns it on. When the kundalini is awakened through shaktipat from the teacher a process of cooperation, surrender, and union with the Divine reality begins. For more details visit http://www.soundbodytrainer.com
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Representing Kundalini yoga and Shaktipat in the website www.soundbodytrainer.com
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Doctors used to believe that depression was a disease of late life, affecting older people more frequently than younger ones. In fact, recent studies have shown that quite the opposite is true. Depression is slightly more common in people between the ages of 18 and 64 than it is among those over 65.
Even so, depression remains the most common psychiatric disorder among older adults, and it’s particularly common among those who are hospitalized for illness or who are living in long-term care facilities. Depression causes untold misery for sufferers and their families alike, and in extreme cases it’s so painful and debilitating that people consider and attempt suicide.
The most common type of depressive illness is major depression. Other types of depression that affect older adults include bipolar disorder (also known as “manic depression” ) and dysthymia. Depression can be a special problem in people over age 65 for several reasons:
* While younger people who are depressed tend to have classic symptoms of depression sleep and appetite disturbances, crying, depressed mood older people often develop physical symptoms that may mask the disorder. These include aches and pains, intestinal complaints, breathing problems and feelings of anxiety.
* When asked by a doctor if they feel depressed, older people are more likely to deny feelings of hopelessness and despair.
* Doctors who demand experience with older patients may misdiagnose and mistreat depression, or they may believe it’s a normal response to the pressures and losses of old age rather than an illness that can be treated.
* It’s often easier for older people who no longer work or care for families to conceal their depression than it is for younger people, who must still show up at the office or take their children to school.
* Because of the stigma associated with depression and other mental illnesses, older people may be reluctant to seek help. They tend to turn their distress in to physical symptoms and then seek medical attention for unexplained headaches, back pain and intestinal problems.
Family History
If a close relative (a grandparent, parent or sibling) has suffered from depression, you are at increased risk. Although this suggests a genetic component to the illness, it’s also doable that depression runs in families for other reasons for example, children who are raised by a depressed parent may change to learn healthy ways of coping with stress, and this can leave them vulnerable to depression. But this doesn’t explain why depression is more likely to affect someone whose aunt, uncle or a distant grandparent suffered from it than someone who has no family history of depression.
Early Loss
Researchers have noted a striking pattern of childhood loss among people who suffer from depression for example, the primeval loss of a parent because of death, divorce or serious illness. This may cause deep-rooted emotional problems that leave them open to depression later in life, especially when they experience other losses.
Physical Illness
Depression often accompanies physical illness, although researchers aren’t sure why. It’s doable that the stress of illness triggers depression, but in some cases particularly with depression after stroke biochemical changes in the brain may occur that cause depression.
Certain diseases and conditions that seem to trigger depression are more common in older adults for example, cancer, chronic pain, stroke, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, thyroid unfortunate and vitamin B 12 deficiency. One study found that about half of all people who suffered a heart attack became clinically depressed, and more than 70 percent of them remained that way for at least a year.
Medication
Certain drugs that older people take to treat other illnesses are known to cause mood changes as a side effect. If you think your depressed mood may be related to a medication, tell your doctor. She may decide to switch you to a different class of drug.
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Depression often accompanies physical illness, although researchers aren’t sure why. Learn more about depression help and know why it happens. Also know about natural herbal supplements which will help you cure depression more rapidly.
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Written on July 6, 2008 | Posted in
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There’s a major difference between the normal, explainable types of anxiety and intense, often crippling anxieties that aren’t so cushy to explain or understand. Doctors call these “anxiety disorders.” It’s estimated that 10 percent of North Americans will experience one of these disorders at some point in their lives. In the past doctors believed that these disorders were directly related to deep-seated psychological problems. Now researchers are finding that genetics and subtle imbalances in brain chemistry may playa significant role.
Anxiety And Depression
The link between anxiety and depression is well known. About 80 percent of people who have been diagnosed with major depression suffer from high levels of anxiety, and about 35 percent of those with anxiety disorders will develop depression. While most psychiatrists still believe that anxiety and depression are separate illnesses, the diseases often overlap, especially in older adults. Are Some People At Greater Risk For Anxiety And Anxiety Disorders?
While older people frequently report anxiety as a symptom, they are less likely to suffer from anxiety disorders than people under age 65. Certain negative experiences associated with aging may make you more vulnerable to anxiety. These include the loss of loved ones, the fear of increased dependency due to health problems, changes in economic or social status, loneliness and fear of isolation, and finally, the fear of dying.
Most people find they can recover from the effects of change and loss if they have enough time. But these stresses tend to pile up in the later years, and it’s cushy for you to become overwhelmed. Some experts think that the so-called “young old” people in their 60s and 70s are most vulnerable to anxiety because they are still adjusting to the realities of older age. Those in their 80s and 90s may actually be less prone to anxiety because longer exposure to loss and stress has given them a measure of resistance.
Women are more likely to experience certain anxiety disorders than men, but the reasons for this aren’t clear. It may be that women, particularly older women who are widowed or divorced, are more likely to be exposed to poverty and powerlessness, which makes them vulnerable to anxiety. Another explanation may be that, in general, women are more likely than men to admit that they have a problem and to seek medical help. Some researchers believe that men also experience anxiety but are more likely to mask their symptoms with alcohol. Your risk for anxiety later in life seems to be greater if you are poor and if you live in a situation that makes you feel completely dependent on others. Common symptoms of Anxiety
* Physical symptoms trembling, twitching or feeling shaky, muscle tension, aches or soreness, pain or discomfort in the chest, shortness of breath, palpitations,sweating, cold or clammy hands, dry mouth, dizziness or lightheadedness, nausea, diarrhea or stomach complaints, flushes or chills, frequent urination, a lump in the throat.
* Emotional symptoms feeling edgy or nervous, easily fatigued, abnormally focused on surroundings or physical sensations, easily startled or upset, trouble concentrating, irritability.
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For more information on anxiety relief and more information about anxiety disorder learn more from authors site.
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Written on July 6, 2008 | Posted in
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Every life lost is a depressing loss. If we know the person, the death can be a load that some cannot carry without the help of something like Xanax. Then comes Heath Ledger - a man who lived his life in the public eye. It was like we all knew him - so alive one minute; so uncompromisingly dead the next. A few days after his discovery on the 22nd Jan 2008, the Medical Examiners Report was published. Heath was relying on Xanax to keep him going. Lets not judge him. Who is to say where the dividing line between genius and insanity lies, nor how anyone stays on the right side of that line without help.
Here was a man at the centre of a perfect storm of expectations. The movie studios pitch their latest offerings to you on the backs of the stars who front them. Just think how much money rides on apiece star name. It used to be that a movie would only cost a few million. Now the production costs can pass $100m without pausing for breath. How does a young man in his twenties cope with that pressure? In 2000, he and Mel Gibson carried The Patriot at just $110m. Then he was headlining and on the run from the pack of celebrity magazines, gossip mongers and their paparazzi photographers who shred your privacy and compete with apiece other to catch you in your most unguarded moments.
The medical profession define social anxiety disorder as extreme anxiety about covering the judgement of others or behaving in a way that might cause you embarrassment or ridicule. How would you react if, everywhere you look or turn, you find a cameras intrusive lens hoping to catch you in a moment that will sell a million magazines? Even the ordinary becomes the potentially extraordinary depending on how the camera captures it (and how some software package can manipulate it to make it more exploitable). When you know that anything you do or say can and will be misinterpreted for anothers profit, is it any surprise that you reach for Xanax? I think not.
In fact, the whole movie industry is probably built on Xanax. Feeling nervous or anxious before you set foot outside your front door knowing youll be stalked by photographers wherever you go? Take a Xanax. Thats not agoraphobia threatening to keep you hiding away, is it? Take another Xanax. The next entrepot you open has pictures of you getting (un)dressed in your bedroom. They were taken with a telephoto lens from the building opposite. Thats not the first sign of a panic attack is it? Draw the curtains and take another Xanax just to keep on living.
But you need the relationship between public and private to stay blurred. To carry the films, your study has to be on everyones lips. You have to be the eye candy for the media voyeurism. Drop from those celebrity magazines and gossip columns, and youre no longer the bankable star. Where can you buy Xanax without someone taking a picture of you? Buy Xanax online. But Heath lost control, mixed his medications, took too much, and paid the price. Let that be a warning to you all. Stay alive by keeping control of your intake of Xanax and any other medications.
The one consolation in all this is that, even though Xanax was not healthy to keep poor Heath going, we still have the next Batman film to look forward to. By all accounts, Heaths performance as the Joker in the Dark Knight is well worth the price of entry. Although theres perhaps something inherently ironic about Xanaxman playing the Joker. Heres a character so completely over-the-top, so excessive in his nature with all that malicious glee bubbling over into destructive energy. Did Heath have to take Xanax to act the part of someone who so obviously doesnt take Xanax?
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Learn more about the information you read here on xanax and by John Scott at http://www.forgetanxiety.com/.
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Written on July 6, 2008 | Posted in
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Psychotic Illness
Psychosis is one of the most severe forms of illness affecting the mind. While psychotic symptoms and disorders are far less common among older adults than depression or anxiety, they still statement for a considerable amount of suffering in later life.
People with psychotic illness often appear to have completely lost touch with reality, and when their symptoms are severe, they are unable to function normally and may require hospitalization. The main feature of psychotic illness is delusions false and sometimes bizarre beliefs. These beliefs are real in the sufferer’s mind and cause him to misinterpret ordinary perceptions or experiences. Often the mortal suffers visual or aural hallucinations that seem extremely real. He may believe he is being tormented, followed, tricked, spied on or ridiculed, and this makes him suspicious and agitated.
People who are psychotic may also become extremely with drawn and apathetic. This may be mistaken for laziness or uncooperativeness. When their symptoms are severe, they may find it nearly impossible to function normally in the world. Older people are most likely to experience psychotic symptoms in the course of a depression or dementing illness, as the result of physical illness such as Huntington’s disease or after certain types of brain injury. Alcohol or drug intoxication is another common source of delusions or hallucinations in older adults.
Sometimes older people become extremely afraid that they’re having hallucinations when they aren’t. The following experiences are common among healthy people and do not remember as psychotic hallucinations.
Hearing or seeing things just as you awaken or start asleep.
Hearing someone call your study occasionally when there’s no one there (this is especially common in the weeks and months following the death of a spouse or loved one).
A musical humming inside your head that clearly isn’t coming from the outside.
The most common type of psychotic illness affecting people of all ages is schizo phrenia, which is estimated to affect about 1 percent of the population. Although there are cases of schizophrenia beginning evenhandedly late in life, most people tend to develop symptoms when they are young the aver age age of onset for men is sometime in late adolescence or the primeval 20s, while for women the disease usually shows up between ages 25 and 30.
There are several types of schizophrenia, but symptoms usually include delusions, hallucinations and obvious disorders in speech, thinking and perception. In many cases these symptoms alternate with periods of extreme apathy and with drawal.
Doctors still don’t know what causes schizophrenia. In the past it was falsely blamed on poor parenting or other psychological factors. Now researchers believe that biochemical factors are involved, most likely an imbalance in the brain chemical dopamine. That’s why certain antipsychotic drugs that suppress dopamine can often control psychotic symptoms and help many people with schizophrenia live relatively normal lives.
Schizophrenia is an extremely difficult illness for those who suffer from it and for their families. Older adults who have had schizophrenia for many years may grappling additional problems when their spouses become ill or die.Unfortunately, very little research has been done into how aging affects schizophrenia. There’s some evidence that older adults suffer less from the active symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations and more from symptoms such as apathy and social with drawal. Studies have also shown that as they age, people with schizophrenia tend to require lower dosages of anti psychotic medication to control their symptoms. If someone you know seems to be developing psychotic symptoms, either spontaneously or in the course of another illness, it’s vital to report this to your doctor.
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Tips and facts about curing depression and other mental disorders, with help of natural herbal supplements as they are quite helpful in depression.
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Written on July 6, 2008 | Posted in
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