April 10, 2014. Neal Howard interviewed Karen Peterson on Health Professional Radio, an internet-based radio stream tailored and targeted exclusively for the health professional. The “More” link will take you to where the audio can be played, as well as a complete written transcript of this interview.
Republished from American Society on Aging website: April 7 2014
Move With Balance, which won the ASA 2012 MindAlert Award, has several exciting developments to share. Receiving the award gave us a hefty push to write a book, Move With Balance®: Healthy Aging Activities for Brain and Body,and create 60 online videos so others could easily replicate our program. And we published an evidence-based study in the November 2013 issue of Hawai’i Journal of Medicine & Public Health.
Now our program is available to group leaders, caregivers and individuals. The brightly illustrated book, which links to 60 online demonstration videos, is loaded with dozens of movements and exercises that even the frailest elder can accomplish. The payoff: increased coordination, sharper cognitive skills, better vision and enhanced self-confidence.
Since publishing Move With Balance®: Healthy Aging Activities for Brain and Body, the book has won two national awards. In September 2013 the Jenkins Group awarded it a bronze medal Living Now Book Award, which celebrates innovation and creativity, while encouraging better living. In March 2014 Foreword Reviews selected Move With Balance®: Healthy Aging Activities for Brain and Body as a Finalist in its Book of the Year Award. This award is for the best Independently Published books of 2013. Winners will be announced in June 2014. More info.
Our evidence-based study, called “An Exercise Program to Prevent Falls in Institutionalized Elderly with Cognitive Deficits: A Crossover Pilot Study,” was published in the November 2013 edition of the Hawai’i Journal of Medicine & Public Health. Study results demonstrate that the Move With Balance program is 66 percent effective in preventing falls. Dr. Lorrin Pang, study author and Maui District Health Officer, is now working on a cost-benefit analysis of Move With Balance. More info.
Move with Balance Founder Karen Peterson has developed a program with a therapeutic approach that integrates the motor, sensory and vestibular systems of the brain, and is particularly beneficial to older adults.
“By building on the reality of neural plasticity and the brain’s ability to be shaped across the lifespan, Move With Balance understands the positive outcomes of caring for our cognitive, motor and spiritual selves,” says Dr. Paul Nussbaum, clinical neuropsychologist and adjunct profession of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Dr. Nussbaum hosts the Brain Health Forum each year at the American Society on Aging conference.
We would love to help you start Move With Balance, with its unique combination of balance, strength training and cognitive skills training, in your community. Visit www.movewithbalance.org for information on our book, videos and recent study.
