Just one exercise class a week keeps the elderly on the go.
Just one exercise class a week can keep pensioners mobile for years to come, research in the Lancet Public Health suggests.
The study found that those who took apart just once a week in a class designed to boost strength, balance and mobility were significantly less likely to see a decline in subsequent years-even after the classes stopped.
Researchers called for such schemes to be rolled out across the NHS, saying the Health Service would make more in savings than the classes cost.
The study, which ran across sites in Birmingham, Devon, Bath and Bristol for more than four and a half years, involved 777 people between the ages of 65 and 98. At the start of the regime, there was an average mobility score of 7.59, on a scale between four and nine. A year after the program, those who took the weekly classes were almost half a point higher.
Prof Afroditi Stathi, React chief investigator, said: "Steady decline (of mobility) is avoidable. It can be prevented or reversed through an exercise program that is tailored and progressive"
By Laura Donnelly in the Sunday Telegraph.
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