Longevity Briefs: The 'Sixth Sense' You Didn't Know You Had, And How You Can Preserve It In Old Age

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Longevity briefs provides a short summary of novel research in biology, medicine, or biotechnology that caught the attention of our researchers in Oxford, due to its potential to improve our health, wellbeing, and longevity.

The problem:

We may not be consciously aware of it, but we are always able to sense how different parts of our bodies are orientated and positioned in space at any one time. Is your left arm bent or straight right now? Chances are you did not need to look down at your arm to answer that question. This ability to sense the body’s position and movement in space is called proprioception and is enabled by receptors in the tendons, muscles, ligaments and joints that transmit information about the position and motion of those joints to the brain.

Proprioception is an often-overlooked sense not included among the traditional 5 basic senses, but just like those other senses, it declines with increasing age. Since proprioception is unsurprisingly essential for balance, decline in proprioception is an underappreciated contributor to falls, fractures and frailty in old age. In this study, researchers review the evidence in an attempt to gauge the impact of declining proprioception in the elderly, and to identify potential interventions.

The discovery:

Research suggests that declining proprioception is largely due to the ageing of the nervous system. Age-related changes in receptors and nerve fibres slow down the transmission of signals from the joints. This delays the onset of movements to correct changes in balance and increases the risk of falls. The good news is that there is evidence from intervention trials in the elderly (though admittedly from a small number of studies) that this decline in proprioception is at least partly reversible. Proprioceptive training exercises, such as balancing exercises with Swiss balls, led to an improvement in proprioception and postural stability. More importantly, they led to a reduction in fall risk in controlled conditions (though none of the studies lasted for long enough to show whether participants went on to suffer fewer falls).

Summary of proprioception exercises used in one of the studies included in the review. From the study: ”Each session lasted 50 minutes (10 minutes of warm-up period, 30 minutes of proprioceptive exercises program, and 10 minutes of cool down), and 6 exercises were included. Exercises No 1–No 5 consisted of 2 sets of 10–15 repetitions with 1 minute of rest between sets. Two sets of 15 seconds and 1-minute rest between sets were performed in exercise No 6. No warming up exercises were performed.”
Effects of 12-Week Proprioception Training Program on Postural Stability, Gait, and Balance in Older Adults A Controlled Clinical Trial

One of the studies also suggested that balance improvements were relatively short-lived and no longer observed after 8 weeks post of followup, suggesting that proprioceptive exercises would need to be continued in order to maintain the balance improvements.

The implications:

This review suggests that declining proprioception is an important but overlooked component of ageing that can be improved through proprioception exercises. However, there’s currently not much research exploring what these exercises should be. The good news is that targeted exercises probably aren’t necessary to improve proprioception – all physical exercise will support proprioception and balance by promoting neurological health and muscle strength, though exercises that involve balance and coordination might be more effective.