Margaret May (McPherson, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to talk about an exciting and extremely important research project taking place on the Gold Coast. Bond University, in partnership with Griffith University, is investigating the optimum level of exercise for women aged between 65 and 74 years. The STEP ForWARD Project, as it is called, aims to determine the correct dose of exercise that should be given to older women to improve their health and wellbeing. The project is funded through the National Health and Medical Research Council, and funding was approved by the Hon. Tony Abbott, the then Minister for Health and Ageing. This research is important, given the increasing number of older women in Australia. As we know, an ageing population places greater stress on Australia’s healthcare system. It is important that preventative and health promotion strategies be developed for older Australian women if we are to minimise the occurrence of chronic disease and disability. It is also important to slow the decline in a woman’s ability to undertake everyday activities.

According to the head of the project, Professor Greg Gass of Bond University, one way in which these goals can be achieved is through regular exercise. That might sound like a simple and obvious approach. Where it gets tricky is in ascertaining the correct dose of exercise older women should undertake to achieve optimum health benefits. Some early results from the project indicate there may be greater benefit for older women to walk for one hour twice a week than to undertake half-hour sessions. Professor Gass believes the project has the potential to completely change current thinking, which has a focus on shorter and more frequent exercise sessions. One question Professor Gass and his team are trying to answer is: does it matter how you deliver 120 minutes of exercise in older women?

The project still has more than two years to run, but so far results are showing that women who walk twice a week are experiencing better health results, including improved bowel function, better sleep and lower blood pressure. A 2005 study out of the United States found that 35 per cent of adults in North America are likely to become diabetic because they eat too much and exercise too little. I think we all know a little about that in this House! The study found that younger women were able to exercise at a level that counteracted the build-up of sugar on their muscles—which can ultimately lead to blindness, heart attacks, strokes, kidney damage and all the other side effects of diabetes—but older women could not. The study recommended, therefore, that older women needed to exercise in order to deplete their muscles of stored sugar. Many of the women who are participating in Professor Gass’s project are also the primary carer for their partner. Many have begun to notice that, because of their exercise program, they are better able to deal with the demands that are placed on them in such a stressful situation.

Professor Gass has told me that one significant result that has emerged from the project is that the women who are travelling to Bond University each week to participate in the project have significantly increased their levels of socialisation—and I think all of us in this House would agree that, for older people, it is very important that they have that social interaction with their community. They have also reported that they feel ‘less depressed and a whole lot better’ because of their participation in the exercise project. Professor Gass assures me that the evidence supporting appropriately prescribed exercise as being cardioprotective, vasculoprotective, musculoskeletoprotective and neuroprotective is compelling. Exercise for older women is incredibly important. It has significant multisystem effects. Try to imagine the number of pills that would need to be taken to get the same effects as exercise. Try to imagine what the cost to the PBS might be and what the possible side effects might be.

To conclude, I would like to recount comments made by one of the project participants. I will not reveal her name, but she is 71 years of age and has been walking on a treadmill twice a week. She has said: ‘Now I have more stamina, I’m not having my sleep in the afternoon anymore and, when I do the gardening, I have more stamina.’ I think many of us, both men and women alike, here in this House and who work in this building could afford to take note of Professor Gass’s project results. (Time expired)