Why Should We Care About Mobility Health?

As we age, maintaining health involves more than just avoiding illness and extending longevity. It’s about preserving the ability to live independently, enjoy social activities, and sustain a high quality of life. In other words, we all hope to extend not only our life span, but our health span.

By now, most of us understand that diet, exercise, and lifestyle can have major impacts on our health span (and life span, for that matter). What’s less commonly known is that mobility health—the ability to move freely and efficiently—is a cornerstone of health span and one of our most important early warning signs for preventable health issues. This blog post explores why.
 

6 Ways Mobility Impacts Health Span

It’s hard to overstate the importance of preventing mobility decline. The impacts of mobility loss are far-reaching and in some cases surprising. Here are six reasons maintaining mobility is so important.

1. It promotes independence and quality of life

Mobility is synonymous with independence. The ability to perform daily tasks such as walking, climbing stairs, and carrying groceries without assistance is crucial for maintaining autonomy as we age. Reduced mobility often leads to reliance on others, which can diminish a person’s sense of independence and self-worth.

2. It helps prevent chronic conditions

Regular movement is fundamental to physical health. Exercise and physical activity strengthen muscles, improve cardiovascular health, and enhance balance and coordination. These benefits are especially important as we age, as they help prevent falls—the leading cause of injury death for people 65 and over.

3. It maintains mental health and cognitive function

Mobility health expands possibilities for physical activity—which countless studies have shown is strongly tied to mental health. Exercise stimulates the release of mood-lifting endorphins that reduce the symptoms of depression and anxiety. Engaging in regular physical activity is also linked to better cognitive function and lower risk of cognitive decline.

4. It supports social engagement

Mobility health facilitates social interactions, which are vital for emotional well-being. Being able to move freely allows individuals to visit friends and family, participate in group activities, and remain involved in their communities. Social engagement combats loneliness and isolation, which are risk factors for multiple mental and physical health issues.

5. It reduces costs and strain on the system 

Poor mobility health can increase healthcare costs for individuals and healthcare systems alike. Falls and the resulting injuries lead to hospital stays, surgeries, and long-term rehabilitation, which can be financially burdensome, to put it lightly. One example: non-fatal falls alone cost the healthcare system an estimated $80 billion in 2020, a number that’s expected to increase to $101 billion by 2030.

How many people would be spared the costs (and psychological/emotional impacts) of surgery, hospital stays, and physical therapy if they simply had enough mobility to keep them from falling in their own homes? Given that falling once doubles a person’s chances of falling again, how many future falls (and their accompanying expenses and risks) could we avoid?

6. It offers new insights and predictive capabilities

The metrics we analyze to understand a person’s mobility health—their activity levels, gait patterns, and balance—can also contain meaningful indicators for conditions like diabetes, hypertension, fall risk, and more. By integrating mobility measurements into our overall understanding of health (and health risk), we add groundbreaking context that can help us prevent or intervene on conditions that shorten the health span. Click here to learn more about how OpenMotion AI is building these solutions.

Bringing It All Together

Before we can use mobility health to inform medical and lifestyle decisions, we need a meaningful way to quantify, track, and analyze it. We need to understand how it changes over time, how it relates to other health factors, and how it is influenced by individual social context.

These needs drive our mission and roadmap at OpenMotion AI. We’re building monitoring and predictive tools that can identify mobility issues early and suggest preventive measures that reduce healthcare costs and improve quality of life. Learn more about our approach in What is High-Resolution Healthcare?

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