Get a grip

[monkeybus]

How strong is your grip strength?

Me, the spasticity is all over my body. I do me a lot of stretching, legs goes without saying. I am always stretching my legs.

But my grip strength has got a lot weaker. Every three months, I visit my neurologist and he always checks my grip strength. Simple things like opening a jar of jam gets challenging. Back in the day, I never felt more of a man than when I was opening a jar.

Anyway, I just happened across this article:

theguardian.com/society/202...

Weak grip has been linked to poor cognitive function, osteoporosis, obesity, fall risk, rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes.

I'll buy that. I've posted before about the old mind-body connection. Using your non dominant hand to do simple tasks like operating the remote control, or using your phone. It's good for the brain. One factor to ward off dementia is to learn new skills.

And here's another quote from the article:

A 2015 study, monitoring nearly 140,000 older adults over four years, found that a frail grip was related to higher incidences of heart attack, stroke, cardiovascular disease and even death. In fact, it predicted the risk of an early death more effectively than blood pressure, another important indicator of health.

I agree with this article 100%.

[monmon]

Mmmm 🤔 That prediction might be true for the majority of T G’s readers…But we’re … rare! (and we don’t need to guess where our musculoskeletal weaknesses comes from). Best of luck with keeping up the squeezing (I’d train with Nutella jars 😁)

[monkeybus in reply to monmon]

Valid points. I've argued my thesis before about how our disease is almost like aging. The things that affect us like muscular strength, posture, brain fog, fatigue, dementia, and on and on, add your own symptoms. They are akin to aging.

But you can do it on your terms. Proper stretching will ease tight, spasticated muscles, and we are in bigger danger of dementia. You gots to work with what you got. Flex whatever muscles you can and work your brain.

I posted before about how walking and brain health are linked. Working on a PC all day, I am getting more and more sedentary. Lifestyle has to be one factor affecting the progression of our disease. Throw in god knows how many other factors.