ProfessorMaria Fiatarone Singh

Prof Fiatarone Singh conducted the first study of high intensity progressive resistance training (PRT) in nonagenarians in a Boston nursing home, published in JAMA in 1990, and a larger trial of exercise and nutritional supplementation (The FICSIT Study), published in NEJM in 1994. These two studies led to a paradigm shift in geriatric practice internationally, with the feasibility and efficacy of this novel mode of training demonstrated for the first time. It has also led to a recognition that sarcopenia is a potentially preventable and treatable condition in older adults, and requires anabolic exercise to overcome the disuse atrophy and catabolism of ageing, inactivity, and chronic disease. Many clinical trials of exercise and nutrition for the treatment of chronic disease and disability have been conducted by Prof Fiatarone Singh since that time, including treatment of peripheral vascular disease, depression, frailty, osteoporosis, congestive heart failure, osteoarthritis, hip fracture, chronic kidney disease, end-stage renal failure, obesity, type 2 diabetes, peripheral vascular disease, cognitive impairment and dementia, gait and balance disorders, recurrent falling, insomnia, malnutrition, vitamin D deficiency, and other syndromes.

Prof Fiatarone Singh’s work and that from other laboratories has led to the incorporation of resistance training as part of the standard recommendation for older adults by the major international bodies producing consensus statements and guidelines in this field. She has twice co-authored the guidelines for exercise and older adults for the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), as well as the Resource Manual for Health Care Professionals, currently in its Eighth Edition. She has contributed to numerous standard international textbooks of geriatric medicine and authored/edited a book on the integration of exercise, nutrition and aged care: Exercise, Nutrition and the Older Woman. As an example of her ability to distil evidence and synthesize it into clinical practice and government policy, Prof. Fiatarone Singh coordinated a systematic review of the evidence for lifestyle modification in the prevention of type 2 diabetes in high-risk adults for The University of Sydney’s Boden Institute of Obesity, Nutrition and Exercise, where she serves as the Director of the Exercise Division. Based on this review, evidence-based standards for Australian community programs/providers were developed for the Council of Australian Governments report in 2009. These standards were used to design accreditation guidelines for providers of diabetes prevention exercise services, which are now funded by Medicare in Australia; the first time exercise was reimbursed for as a recognized preventive treatment for any disease.

The ultimate goal of Prof Fiatarone Singh’s clinical and research career is to improve health care and quality of life, particularly for the most vulnerable with limited access to quality lifestyle programs and aged care. She founded and still provides consultation to the Circle of Fitness, an exercise program for residents of Hebrew SeniorLife, which has operated continuously since 1989 as an outgrowth of the original FICSIT nursing home trial in Boston. She is the founding director of the Fit for Your Life Foundation, an international non-profit organization dedicated to providing low cost education on health and fitness to seniors and their caregivers since 1992. She co-founded the STRONG Clinic at Balmain Hospital in Sydney in 1999, which serves thousands of older adults each year, providing a complete integration of their geriatric care and treatment of sarcopenia with resistance training and other lifestyle modifications. She is the founder and director of PLAYIT FORWARD, a program that encourages mini-philanthropic gifting by consumers each time they play computer/smart phone games. She is designing and will direct an Exercise as Medicine Clinic for the Charles Perkins Centre at USYD, called the Fit For Your Life Clinic, a multidisciplinary state-of-the-art clinical service which will translate and disseminate evidence-based exercise and nutritional interventions directly into the care of adults with chronic diseases and risk factors amenable to such holistic and progressive care.

Maria is a member of the Exercise for Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Treatment Research team, the link to this team is:

http://sydney.edu.au/health-sciences/research/exercise-health-promotion/index.shtm

She is a Geriatrician with research interests in exercise, nutrition and ageing.