Is it neurological, or a muscular issue? Perception of time? I know some old folks have balance issues, but others seem to do every thing slowly.
A tiny old lady was tiny stepping along the side walk in my moms neighbourhood. If she was heading out of the neighbourhood, it was going to take hours.
Why so slow?
IANAD. IANAN (Neurologist). IAAAOF (I am an aging old fart.)
My WAG: Any or (even more likely) all of the above. Also musculo-skeletal. (Translation: Arthritis. Or various other joint problems.)
One issue is that old bones break easily, old bones don’t heal easily, and a broken bone in an old person can mean a long hospital visit with possible complications. Maybe they’re just really cautious.
Some of it is pain limiting mobility, which becomes a vicious cycle, because immobility causes pain…
But some of it is indeed neurological, and can be overcome. As we limit our movements due to fear, injury, accident, “being careful” or even physical or psychological trauma, our brains eventually delete the information we once used to, for example, be able to move our feet in opposing circles to our hands, or at least bury it so deep that we can’t remember how to do it anymore. It is regainable, though, it’s not permanent loss. One of the women I used to work for was really big into Masters’ method of psychophysical reeducation, which is a way woo technique for increasing range of motion, balance and mobility through gentle exercise, rather than manipulation of tissues. It shares many ideas with Feldenkrais, which everyone in woo circles seems to know and almost no one outside woo is aware of.
Like most alt/complementary medicine, these methods haven’t been really widely studied, but when you watch a room full of old folks shuffle in and literally dance out, it’s pretty astounding. And it works on not-old people with poor flexibility, like me, too.
Maybe they’re channeling Tim Conway.
Get off my lawn! :mad:
Haha! You can’t catch me! 
It is multifactorial:
The older someone is, the more likely they are to have developed various diseases or other abnormalities in the above areas. More specifically, as one ages there is an increasing likelihood of:
a) Parkinson’s Disease (where movements must be thought out, planned, and executed deliberately rather than fluidly, effortlessly, and unconsciously; where the muscles are rigid and stiff; and where the normal rapidly-introduced, unconsciously-issued corrective reflexes needed for real world movement are lost)
b) previous strokes (where various control centers in the brain have been damaged or destroyed; where those parts of the brain responsible for the integration and coordination of the myriad moving parts of the body needed for movement have been damaged or destroyed)
c) neuropathy (where the nerves in the hands and feet, among others, are damaged leading to deranged sensory input and feedback, e.g. how can you walk quickly if you don’t know where your feet are?). Neuropathy is age-related and also due to conditions such as diabetes which are common in the elderly
d) weakness and deconditioning, possibly due to stroke or other previous brain damage/disease, but made worse by old age itself, i.e. muscle mass shrinks as one ages, i.e. there is a vicious circle that is especially prominent and potent in the elderly wherein weakness leads to reduced activity and movement which causes atrophy of the muscles which then causes worse weakness etc.
e) problems with balance due to the previous three entities but sometimes from old age itself
f) cognitive impairment
impaired vision due to age-related changes in the lens of the eye (cataracts), the retina (e.g. macular degeneration), pressures in the eyeball itself (glaucoma) and impaired hearing (often just from old age itself, i.e. presbycusis). You’d be surprised how challenging it is to walk at a normal pace when you’ve lost the normal and expected auditory cues from the environment
arthritis - often simply due to ‘wear and tear’ (i.e. osteoarthritis). The joints become painful and/or stiff, in both cases leading to a slowing down (whether to minimize pain or simply because it takes longer to move stiff, ‘frozen’ or ‘sticky’ joints). The hips and knees are especially likely to be affected making impaired ambulation a common consequence.
cardiovascular problems such as lack of breath when walking, poor blood flow to the brain when standing (leading to lightheadedness and fainting), poor blood flow to the leg muscles (leading to leg pain when walking), all often due in turn to age-related "hardening of the arteries, i.e. atherosclerosis, and sometimes exacerbated by treatments of coexisting conditions, e.g. blood pressure medications worsening lightheadness.
psychological - once someone has fallen, their confidence can be lost forever. They will then walk slowly and cautiously (which, paradoxically, can lead to even greater difficulty in walking). Depression is also common in the elderly and that, almost by definition, can slow them down.
“polypharmacy” - many older folks are taking huge numbers of medications, many of which affect things like balance and coordination, blood flow to the brain, etc., thereby worsening the person’s tendency to fall, or simply to walk slowly
And this is just off the top of my head. I’m sure there are more, likely many more, contributing factors.
As an aside, some medical schools teach their students empathy for the elderly by having the students don thick gloves (to mimic the loss of sensation induced by neuropathy), wear vaseline-coated sunglasses (to reduce vision), insert ear plugs, wear heavy, inflexible clothes, etc., all to simulate what it can be like to be elderly and frail. One school has even developed an “old age suit”.
But my 12 gauge can, you little whippersnapper!
Just to annoy you.
All I know is that I don’t have Parkinson’s, nor arthritis, nor poor vision. I do have peripheral neuropathy, but my wife doesn’t and she moves around the same speed as me. In fact, I wouldn’t know I was moving slow, but for two facts. First, all the people who pass me when I am walking at what seems to be top speed. And it used to take me about 1:20 to walk the four miles to my office and it now takes about 25 minutes longer. So from 3 mi/hr, I have slowed to about 2.5. And no, I’ not doing it to bug you.
I do know in other ways that my muscles are weaker. For example, I have trouble arising from a deep sofa. When I was 60 pounds heavier and 20 years younger I never had any trouble. Maybe my mitochondria are all worn out, like the ads say.
Regarding your observation, I will emphasize that:
So, even in the absence of overt disease or pathology, older people simply get weaker as they age.
One of the potential selling points for recombinant technology-produced growth hormone was its ability to promote restoration of muscle mass in older individuals (recognizing that growth hormone levels tend to fall to zero as we get older). Alas, notwithstanding the increase in muscle mass induced by growth hormone supplementation, there was little net effect on muscle strength.
Perception of time is also different when you’re older.
Also, since most of us old farts are retired, we no longer live on a deadline (thank OG), and thus when everything hurts, we can just slow down and not rush. Sorry if we’re in your way. GO AROUND!
Haha, thanks All. You provided some great facts and some laughs.
I wasnt annoyed at the ladies slow pace: I was driving and she was on the side walk.
I’m not even fifty and got a taste of old age pains. Hurt my shoulder earlier this summer. Hurts to reach straight out and pick up something. It’s better now, but I still reach out “slowly” and “cautiously”. Not only to reduce the chance of pain, but also to prevent dropping whatever I’m picking up. Pain surprises you and it’s hard to keep a grip on whatever you’re holding.
Not hard to imagine what a 70 year old goes through. I’ll probably be walking slow then too.
You tumble arse-over-tip as many times as I have, and you’d walk slowly too!
I’m in that age range where I’m capable of walking quite a bit faster than I actually do walk…for having stumbled too darn many times.
At 43, I like to think I’m not elderly, but on a bad hip day (arthritis), I do what I call “the granny hobble”, with very small steps because that’s what my hips will do.
Some drivers will slowly edge their car toward a slow-moving elderly person in a crosswalk to try and make them walk faster or move their wheelchair faster. Nothing works better to lend an old person a jolt of energy than the threat of vehicular homicide, I guess.
old people move like young people know anything about anything. That is, slow. Kind of like remedial motion.