2013 Volume 50 Issue 6 Pages 780-783
Aim: The purpose of anti-aging medical checkups is to evaluate the functional age of the patient, aiming to prevent functional aging and rejuvenate the functional age. In this study, a comparison of the medical checkup results was conducted in elderly groups with different levels of activities of daily living (ADL).
Methods: There were three groups of subjects; and an independent group that included 43 independently-living subjects (68.9±6.3 years) in the Kyoto Yurin area, a support-requiring group that included 31 subjects (77.8±7.2 years) routinely visiting a day care center and a nursing-requiring group that included 19 subjects (83.7±6.8 years) who were living in a medical care facility for the elderly. We conducted anti-aging medical checkups, and the following five factors were evaluated: muscle mass by the bioelectric impedance method (Physion MD), bone strength by an ultrasonic wave method (A-1000: Yokogawa, AOS-100NW: Aloka), fingertip pulse wave analysis (SDP-100: Fukuda), cognitive function (Wisconsin card sorting test) and the serum insulin-like growth factor-I and dehydroepiandrosterone-sulfate (DHEA-s) level. To calculate the functional age of the subjects, we used the Age Management Check (Ginga Kobo, Nagoya), and the Δage (functional age-chronological age) was analyzed and compared between the groups.
Results: The functional ages in the independent group were muscle age, 55.5±7.0; blood vascular age, 65.4±8.5; neural age, 63.6±14.8; hormone age, 70.4±7.6 and bone age, 60.2±14.6 years. As a result of an increase in 1,506 daily steps based on walking instruction with pedometer monitoring, the subjects significantly improved their body weight, BMI, waist size, fasting plasma glucose level and serum DHEA-s in six months. By showing them their functional age, their motivation to participate in the health promotion program was increased, and the compliance was high, with an omission rate of less than 20% in 2.5 years. The support- and nursing-requiring groups showed muscle ages of 58.8±3.3 and 61.9±4.0, blood vascular ages of 75.5±12.6 and 71.8±11.1, neural ages of 86.5±8.8 and 88.5±5.8 and bone ages of 81.0±12.0 and 75.7±12.3, respectively. The Δage analysis in the three groups revealed that the Δneural age increased as the ADL decreased.
Conclusions: The Δage analysis indicated that the decreased ADL in the elderly may be mainly associated with their neural function in the factors examined. Anti-aging medical checkups are high in terms of their cost-performance ratio and are easily accepted by the elderly, and are thus recommended for elderly with all grades of ADL.
