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We are on the backside of a series on Frailty, the study of how the systems of the body work together and what happens when they stop. In addition (and more importantly) - how you can slow, stop and, in some cases, reverse these changes to live your life as long and full as possible.

This week we are going to be talking about the Musculoskeletal System, one of my favorites! You might suppose I like it so much, because it forms the bread and butter of my livelihood as a chiropractor, and you wouldn't be totally wrong! However, the real reason I like it so much is that this system out of all of ...

Welcome to 2017!  I hope you all had a great Holiday Season! We are committed to bringing you a lot of useful and easy to implement information over the next twelve months to make this  your best year yet. This week's blog is going to be short and sweet, and get us started out on the right foot.  We are going to cover two things:

1. Our New User-Friendly Blog Site and Email Address
2. Recap and Road Map of the Current Series on Frailty

New User Friendly Blog Site and Email Address

We have been working our way through a series on Frailty. Frailty is a recent concept found in the medical literature that, rather than describing a single health event, describes what happens when a number of systems start to have problems. The areas we are looking at are:

• Inflammatory
• Endocrine (hormonal)
• Skeletal
• Neurological
• Integrative

Initially, frailty was looked at as an end of life issue. What has come out of the study of frailty is that, not only do these systems fail over time instead of all at once, but many times, their failure can be slowed, stopped and sometimes...

The word inflammation comes from the Latin "inflammo," meaning "I set alight, I ignite." Lots of things can be associated with inflammation - words, for example! Actions might be considered inflammatory as well. When considering inflammation with respect to health-wellness-disease and in our current series on Frailty, typically, it would refer to a reaction of the immune system. Inflammation in the body can be either acute (sudden, intense, often life-threatening, injury or infection) or chronic (persistent, long lasting, difficult to eradicate). For our purposes of building a framework on how...

If you are just joining us, we are on a mission to learn about health by exploring the concept of frailty: what goes wrong when the systems of our bodies break down. But more importantly, we are examining what you can do to prevent our body systems from breaking down in the first place and how to support them if things start to go wrong.

Last week, we outlined the different windows we are going to be looking through in this series: inflammatory, endocrine, skeletal, neurological and integrative.

Sometimes, the best way to figure out how a complex system (like the body) works is to reverse engi...

We have just started a new blog series on Health and Frailty. In it, we will be working through material found in a journal article from The American Geriatrics Society. I came across this article several years ago when I sought to understand the body as it aged and how to help it age better. What I found surprised me. Not only was there a lot of interest in the subject, but a lot of ground work has already been done. Something I did not expect to find was that most, if not all, of the material described was applicable to all age groups, young and old alike. These issues impact all of us. Ever...

When I was 21, I thought I was anything but frail. I was ready to take on the world and, often times, to my own detriment, did. At 52, I am still ready to take on the world, but hey, give me a few minutes, I need to warm-up first!

Today marks the start of a new blog series. Over the next few months, we are going to be exploring an area of health care science termed "Frailty." One definition of the word frail is: weak or delicate, easily damaged or broken, fragile or insubstantial.

Frailty is probably one of those things best described as: "I don't know what it is, but I will know it when I see...

Today, we are going from the floor to the ceiling!

Over the last month or so, we have been working on going from the floor to standing up with as little assistance as possible. Far from a circus trick to impress your friends (this trick gets more impressive the older we get - five-year olds won't be impressed at all, 55-year olds would likely quite impressed), this little gem may also predict how long you are likely to live. Researchers have found that the less assistance you need to get up off the ground, in terms of touches, the less likely you are to die. We have discussed several strategie...

Finally, we are going to start heading down! This last month, we have been on a journey building up the framework to make it possible to get up and down off the ground with the least amount of assistance. Studies have shown that the more help you need getting up off the floor, the shorter the time you have to live! I know that sounds crazy, but I think most of us realize that is empirically true. The less mobile and strong we are, the less healthy and capable we are of taking care of life's daily needs. We have talked about the following:

1. Proper form in getting up and down out of a chair
2. H...

As you probably already know, this month, we are working on how to improve your ability to get up and down off the floor without using any help, or at least as little help as possible.

The first article in this series discussed a cool study that showed that your ability to get up and down off the floor with as little help as possible was directly related to how long you were going to live! The second week, we learned how to start training some of the muscles that will help propel you up off the ground by looking at the mechanics of a "chair squat." Last week, we slowed the whole process down i...