Aging, Older adults

The benefits of the Alexander Technique for aging and older adults have recently been more well documented.

The term ‘older adults’ refers to people in what is also termed old age, the elderly, or senior citizens (US: seniors).

F. M. Alexander

F. M. Alexander does not specifically address aging, but does reproduce a doctor’s letter as a case history of ‘old age’ (‘Mr A.’ who died age 81) in UCL.[1]

General

• Agility at Any Age by Mary Derbyshire uses the Alexander Technique for a range of simple-to-do exercises and explorations for people who are less agile with age.[2]
• ‘Teaching seniors’ by Wade Alexander suggests a list of aspects of the Alexander Technique he finds particularly useful (from personal experience) for the elderly.[3]
• ‘Teaching AT to the elderly’ by Charlie Loram reports on a workshop on using the Technique for positive aging with Gunda Fielden and Sarah-Linda Mugan.[4]

Autobiographical case histories: Pupils

• ‘Forward and up at fifty’ relates Carla Atkinson’s experiences of starting having lessons with F. M. Alexander at fifty.[5] She had had polio as a child and consequently difficulty with walking for many years prior.
• ‘Forward and up at seventy-five’ by Roey Burden is also case history of a woman, whom having suffered from polio as a child and undergone surgery to improve, started the Alexander Technique late in life.[6]
• ‘The experience of an “Older Person”’ by Dorothy Walker relates the benefits she experienced starting lessons at over 70 years of age.[7]

Case histories: Teachers

Two volumes of Living the Alexander Technique by Ruth Rootberg contains interviews with in total 20 senior teachers of the Alexander Technique on using the Alexander Technique as they grow older and more frail.[8] [9]

Research

• In 1999 a pilot research showed that women aged 65-88 who had received 8 Alexander Technique lessons each showed a 36% improvement in forward-reaching distance (a common measure of balance control), while control subjects of the same age showed a 6% decrease over the same time period.[10]
• A 2008 study consisted of a 2-week intensive Alexander Technique group class (1.5 hours per day) with 19 elderly (average age 78.8) with a fall history. There were significant improvements in two out of three measurements.[11] The results were also reported in the 2008 Congress Papers.[12]
• A study in 2015 investigated the impact of Alexander Technique lessons on balance and mobility in older adults with visual impairments. Although the lessons did not have a significant impact on the primary outcomes it had benefits in postural sway, trends towards fewer falls and injurious falls and improved mobility among past multiple-fallers.[13]
• Six Alexander Technique teachers and seven controls between the ages of 60 and 75 years of age participated in a 2015 study on walking (gait patterns). The findings ‘suggest superior control of dynamic stability during gait and potentially reduced fall risk in Alexander Technique teachers’.[14]
• In 2016 a comparison was made of the walk (gait patterns) of six older AT practitioners (teachers) with those of healthy, age-matched controls and concluded that older AT practitioners ‘walked with gait patterns more similar to those found in the literature for younger adults’.[15]
• A 2018 pilot research for older people with a fear of falling consisted of 12 volunteers at age 65 or over who had 12 lessons each, and concluded that ‘participation in the AT group offered a holistic intervention which appears to have an impact on falls-related skills, more general physical skills and psychological well-being . . .’.[16]

Discussion

A number of Alexander Technique teachers reached an impressive age: F. M. Alexander (86), Marjory Barlow (91), Marjorie Barstow (96), Walter Carrington (90), Dilys Carrington (94), Elisabeth Walker (99), Margaret Goldie (92), Patrick Macdonald (81), Irene Tasker (89), Catherine (‘Kitty’) Wielopolska (88). None of them wrote specifically on the application of the Technique to aging; however Elisabeth Walker’s autobiography does give an account of the active life she managed into her last years.[17]

References