The 60s
Continuing the trend from earlier decades, heart health should be the focus for women heading into their 60s and beyond. A healthy diet, aerobic activity, and muscle strengthening exercises— which also protects your bones as they begin to weaken—together remain the cornerstone of protecting your heart and brain. But it’s also important to recognize a heart attack if it occurs.
“Women will often get shortness of breath, accompanying chest pain, back pain, a fatigue that’s easy to write off,” Rosen says. “You have that Spidey sense. If something’s not right, get it checked out because this becomes dangerous time for women.”
Women in their 60s should be on the lookout for cognitive decline, osteoporosis, and heart conditions, among other potential health issues.
Another important body part that deserves attention is your pelvis. Perhaps you’ve heard you should “do your Kegels,” but many women don’t fully grasp how important it is to maintain the strength of their pelvic floor. The pelvic floor muscles support the bladder, uterus, and bowels and tighten the vaginal, urethra, and anal openings. As you age, and particularly if you had pregnancies, these muscles can gradually weaken, increasing the risk of pelvic organ prolapse and incontinence. The risk becomes even greater after menopause, with the loss of estrogen.
Pelvic organ prolapse, where one or more of the pelvic organs bulge into the vagina, occurs in up to half of all women at some point, and the urinary incontinence associated with a weakened pelvic floor is the top reason that women enter nursing homes, Rabin says. But you can do exercises to strengthen these muscles.
“I recommend people maximize their pelvic floor strength every decade and that way, if they keep it as strong as possible, they’re less likely to have prolapse and incontinence,” Rabin says.
