Walking Lowers Risk of All-Cause Mortality

 

It's a mile walk each way to the new
LDS temple in Ephraim

Since experiencing problems with my rotator cuff (right shoulder), I have dialed back on exercises that focus a lot on the shoulder. I am cleared to do so, but I am being cautious. For the time being, I have stopped doing strength training (aka weightlifting), yoga, and swimming. Instead, I have started walking, which does not make that many demands on my shoulders. 

In 2013, I posted about walking rate as a biomarker of longevity. I decided that it's a topic worth revisiting with a slightly different focus. 

Note: This post is not offering medical advise; it is only to raise awareness. If you are planning to start a fitness regime, please discuss your plans with a licensed medical professional. 

To help motivate me, I downloaded an app that uses the fitness tracker on my cell phone, one that includes medals as a reward for completing a walking goal. I am striving to walk somewhere between 5,000 steps and 10,000 steps a day.  If I walk to the public library where I work part time, that helps me to achieve my daily goal. 

Falls Can Lead to Death

 

Image by Alexander Delaunoy
via Creative Commons

In the fourteen years that I have been maintaining this blog, I have written about falls just a handful of times.  In 2026, the issue is more salient for me because three of my six children's grandparents have been falling with serious consequences. 

• My mother (in her late 80s) is falling about once a month that my sisters and I know of. In February, she fell and broke her arm in three places near the wrist. A decade earlier, she fell and damaged her knee. 
• My step-mother (in her mid 80s) has muscle wasting and dementia. She has falling repeatedly, causing a broken hip and several broken teeth. 
• My step-father (aged 91) fell and hit his head in January, causing a brain bleed that led to his death eight days later. He was living with Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (which includes gait problems and cognition problems). Additionally, he had the flu that made him even more unsteady.  

These falls, however, are not just limited to my own aging relatives.  This is a problem that many older adults experience. According to 2024 data provided by the CDC and reported by the National Safety Council  aka NSC (an NGO), "43,020 individuals aged 65 and older died as a result of preventable falls."  To put this number in context, this represents an upward trend for deaths: 

"Over the past 10 years, the number of fall-related deaths among older adults [in the US] has increased by 51% while emergency department visits have risen by 38%. In contrast, the number of fall deaths among individuals younger than 65 has increased by only 8%, and emergency department visits for this age group have decreased by 26%." 

To see a graph depicting this trend, visit this link (which is the same NSC link above).  

Why the upward trend?  

The Housekeeper and the Professor: Book Review

 

Published 6 April 2005

I read newly released books; however, I do like to dig around for hidden gems from prior years, even prior decades. I found this novel, The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa probably while searching for books about late life. 

The novel features a quartet of characters: obviously, there is a professor. He is a retired mathematician who requires care because of age-related frailty. His sister hires a woman to come cook and clean for him in addition to being a companion.  She has a school-aged child whom she brings with her.  The sister is largely out of sight for most of the novel, so it's really the trio who are in the spotlight. 

Over the course of the book, the mathematician warms up to the housekeeper and the son by talking in an animated matter about math. The housekeeper has some innate ability to understand some of the more philosophical aspects of mathematics.  The boy is interested in baseball generally.  The mother has a better understanding of baseball statistics.  

It is a heartwarming book about how strangers can form meaningful bonds under peculiar circumstances. 

Related: 

Books on Aging. 

Going to PT -- Again: Rotator Cuff This Time

 

I spent March going to PT

While I was working for Newman University in Kansas, the VP of Student Affairs observed that her parents were aging under different models: "My mom is rusting out, and my dad is wearing out."  I have long expected that I am on the "wearing out" trajectory.  And so here I am at age 64 with a torn rotator cuff on my right side. 

I have already experienced problems with my right shoulder / arm.  While living in Indiana, I saw an physical therapist for an AC joint impingement and another one for a pinched ulna nerve.  In West Virginia, I saw a physical therapist for a torn piriformis, but that is an issue with my hip (but also on the right side).  Now I am visiting a physical therapist here in Ephraim for a torn rotator cuff. 

I knew something was wrong, but I have been busy supporting my mother, which meant that I was traveling to Utah County (90 miles each way) two or three times a week while working two part jobs and doing volunteer work. (My mother was widowed in January. In February, she fell and broke her left arm in three places. She needed help because of being in a cast.) 

I was going to seek help for myself in May after I filed grades for the semester (I teach a class on research paper writing for Snow College); however, I got to the point where I did not want to use my right arm (my dominant side). 

I was switching to using my ungraceful and weaker left arm, because with my right arm, I could not hang up clothes, could not reach for a bar of soap in the bathtub, and couldn't carry anything over a pound with my right hand.  So I caved and got treatment plan after the  diagnosis, which included movement tests and images: first an x-ray then a sonogram. 

How did I tear my rotator cuff?