HCS 433 Week 3 Functionality Paper: Aging and Loss of Body Function Example

The Chair Became a Test: Muscle Loss, Falls and the Slow Narrowing of Daily Life in a Seventy-Nine-Year-Old Retired Dairy Farmer, and What Restores Function

[Student Name]

University of Phoenix

HCS/433: Dimensions of Health and the Older Adult

Week 3 Assignment

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The farmer, his family and his clinic are composites written for a model paper; definitions, statistics and trial findings come from the sources listed.

For 50 years a composite dairy farmer lifted feed sacks, hay bales and calves. At 79, retired and living on the same farm with his wife, he now pushes on his thighs with both hands to rise from a kitchen chair. He has stopped climbing to the hayloft, then stopped walking to the mailbox at the end of the lane, and last winter he fell on the porch steps. His son asked the family's primary care clinic whether this is just getting old. This paper examines the aging of the musculoskeletal system, especially muscle, and shows how the loss of strength has narrowed his daily life and what can restore it.

Normal Aging of Muscle

Muscle mass and strength peak in early adulthood and decline gradually afterward, with the loss speeding up after about age 60. Fibers that produce fast, forceful contractions are lost more than slower fibers, so power, the ability to generate force quickly, declines faster than strength. Tendons stiffen and joint cartilage thins. Some of this change happens to everyone.

When Loss Becomes Disease: Sarcopenia

When the loss of muscle strength and mass is large enough to raise the risk of falls, disability and death, it is recognized as a disease called sarcopenia. Cruz-Jentoft and Sayer (2019) described it as a progressive and generalized skeletal muscle disorder that occurs commonly with aging but is influenced by genetics, lifestyle and illness across the life course, and they noted that current definitions emphasize low muscle strength as the key feature. Weakness, not thinness, is the warning sign; a heavy older man can have sarcopenia hidden beneath normal weight.

His Assessment

At the clinic, his grip strength measured well below the cutoff for men of his age, he needed 19 seconds to rise from a chair five times without using his arms, which he could barely do, and his walking speed was 0.7 meters per second, slow enough to predict falls and disability. He takes medication for blood pressure and has mild knee osteoarthritis. Blood tests were normal. His clinician diagnosed sarcopenia.

Why Falls Matter

Kakara et al. (2023) reported that in 2020 about 14 million U.S. adults 65 and older, 27.6%, said they had fallen in the past year, and that unintentional falls killed 38,742 people in that age group the following year. Weak legs, slow walking and poor balance are among the strongest predictors of falls, and his porch fall was a warning.

From Strength to Daily Activities

His losses follow a sequence. Weak thigh muscles make rising from chairs and toilets hard. Slow, cautious walking makes the lane to the mailbox feel long. Stairs require both handrails. Stepping into the bathtub feels dangerous, so he now washes at the sink, and bathing is a basic activity of daily living. His grip weakness makes opening jars and turning the truck's steering wheel harder, and his family asked him to stop driving the tractor, then the truck on the highway. Driving and shopping are instrumental activities of daily living, the tasks that support independent life.

Emotional and Social Effects

For a man whose identity was built on physical work, each lost task is also a lost role. He describes feeling like a spectator on his own farm. He has stopped going to the Saturday breakfast at the feed store because getting in and out of the truck is embarrassing. His wife now does the heavy chores, which worries both of them because she has her own back problems.

The Evidence for Rebuilding Strength

Muscle responds to training at any age. Peterson et al. (2010) combined 47 studies including 1,079 older adults and found that resistance exercise produced strength gains across all measured exercises, with increases of about 24% to 33%, and that higher-intensity training was associated with greater improvement. Cruz-Jentoft and Sayer (2019) identified resistance exercise as the main treatment for sarcopenia, with adequate protein intake as support.

The Plan

The clinic referred him to outpatient physical therapy twice a week for 12 weeks, focusing on progressive leg and grip strengthening, balance training and practice rising from chairs and climbing steps. A dietitian reviewed his eating, found he often skipped breakfast and ate little protein, and suggested eggs or yogurt each morning. An occupational therapist visited the farmhouse, recommended a tub bench, grab bars and a raised toilet seat and repaired the porch handrail with his son. His medications were reviewed for any that cause dizziness.

Services and Costs

Medicare Part B covers outpatient physical and occupational therapy when medically necessary, subject to his usual cost sharing. Grab bars and tub benches are generally not covered, so the family bought them for under $200. The county's senior services office offered a strength and balance class at the community center once therapy ends.

Results After Three Months

After 12 weeks, he rose from the chair five times in 13 seconds, his walking speed improved to 0.9 meters per second and he walked to the mailbox daily. He bathes in the tub with the bench and grab bar. He returned to the Saturday breakfast, driven by his son at first and later on his own on local roads.

What This Means for Health Care Organizations

Loss of function in older adults is often treated as inevitable and recorded only after a fall or fracture. Clinics that measure strength and walking speed routinely, and that have working links to therapy, nutrition and home safety services, can find sarcopenia early and reverse part of it.

Conclusion

The farmer's story shows how an aging body system, weakened beyond normal aging into disease, narrows daily life one task at a time, from rising from a chair to driving to town. It also shows that the loss is not fixed. Resistance exercise, better nutrition and a safer home restored enough strength for him to resume the activities that made him who he is.

References

Cruz-Jentoft, A. J., & Sayer, A. A. (2019). Sarcopenia. The Lancet, 393(10191), 2636-2646. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(19)31138-9

Kakara, R., Bergen, G., Burns, E., & Stevens, M. (2023). Nonfatal and fatal falls among adults aged ≥65 years: United States, 2020-2021. MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 72(35), 938-943. https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7235a1

Peterson, M. D., Rhea, M. R., Sen, A., & Gordon, P. M. (2010). Resistance exercise for muscular strength in older adults: A meta-analysis. Ageing Research Reviews, 9(3), 226-237. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2010.03.004