Dawn Skelton (LLT Director and Professor of ageing and health at Glasgow Caledonian University) gave a Keynote at the British Geriatrics Society Annual Conference in London on 22 Nov 2017. Her talk, entitled, Exercise for Frailty and Sarcopenia: Challenges and Opportunities, proposed that the evidence for the positive effects of exercise on muscle strength, sarcopenia and frailty (including falls) was clear and fidelity to the dose, intensity and training of the person delivering the intervention was key. She suggested to the audience that whilst there is a clear process for medication delivery (minimum dose, prescribed by someone with the skills to prescribe etc.) there was none for the delivery of exercise to older people who have little time for an ineffective intervention. In order for the intervention to make a real difference to a frailer older person, we needed to get strict on the key aspects that make the intervention effective – i.e. the right prescription of exercise, the right intensity, type and progression of exercise.
You can read more about her keynote here, in an article from the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. You can view her Keynote presentation as a PDF here.