If you had your way, you’d love to grow old while your body stays younger and without any health issues.
But the truth is old age comes with health concerns and the best way to deal with these challenge is to have the right information.
One of the things you should know is, using a fitness or activity tracker can help you stay fit and healthy as a senior. And in this post, you will discover 5 reasons why should use one.
#1. Motivation to keep fit
Motivation is often a challenge when trying to keep fit. However, a fitness tracker can help you self-monitor your health, set goals and even get feedback on your progress.
Also, fitness trackers can be connected online enabling you share your progress with friends, family and co-workers.
#2. Sleep monitoring
Sleep is important for good health and poor sleep patterns have been linked with a higher risk of heart disease, kidney disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and stroke.
Unfortunately, seniors often find it difficult falling asleep and when they do they tend to wake after a few hours.
Often times, physical and psychiatric illnesses and the medications used to treat them have been associated with this health concern in older adults. But the good news is, sleep shouldn’t necessarily decline with age if you have a good fitness tracker.
There are fitness trackers with built-in sleep monitors which measure how long you sleep and evaluate the quality of your rest by how much you move around while you sleep.
#3. Weight loss monitoring
How do you know if you’re eating right as a senior? Remember, obesity is quite common in seniors and it is more complicated than you think.
Over the last few years, obesity has been rising in older adults and it is yet to receive as much attention as childhood obesity.
Nevertheless, fitness trackers have been mitigating this health risk by helping seniors track their calories consumption rate.
You can find fitness tracker apps with nutritional information databases, which include most foods which makes it easy for you to count your calories seamlessly.
#4. Physical activity monitoring
The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services revealed that only 35-44 percent of adults aged 75 or older are physically active.
This is a major concern and this statistic buttresses the fact that fitness tracker can be important for seniors.
Generally, fitness trackers can help you keep fit by monitoring your activity level. For instance, a pedometer can help increase your physical activity by tracking the number of steps you take each days.
Also, wearables can serve as companion apps offering exercise suggestions that you might not have considered.
#5. Medical care assessment
One of the benefits of fitness trackers is that it can help caregivers monitor their patient’s health remotely. Although, this benefit is yet to be massively adopted, it is expected to be in the near future and when it does; it will certain revolutionize the way patients and doctors interact.
Currently, one of the major measurements that fitness tracker can assist doctors with is – blood pressure. Also, wearables will be able to predict an impending illness in future according to a recent study at Stanford University.