Physiotherapy for seniors and the elderly
Sébastien Turner-Chiasson, Physiotherapist
Physiotherapy is a well-known profession in our health care system that can have different objectives depending on the clientele. We often hear that physiotherapy helps adults and teenagers with pain relief or to help recover from an injury. With the elderly, the objectives of physiotherapy can be significantly different, which will be discussed in this blog.
Maintaining muscle strength and mobility
With the normal aging process, the human body can lose a significant amount of muscle strength and mobility. Also, certain diseases or health problems may aggravate this phenomenon (a stroke for example). With physiotherapy, many exercises can be done to maintain or improve strength/mobility of a certain body part to ensure its function.
Improve balance and safety
Falls can happen at any moment of someone’s life, but the risk of falling increases significantly with time because of multiple factors related to aging. A physiotherapist may use different methods to improve balance and safety, such as practicing balance exercises or educating the elderly on safety to prevent falls.
Pain management
As for the younger generations, there are modalities in physiotherapy that exist to decrease pain. A physiotherapist may also give tips/advice on how to manage pain at home.
Recovery post-surgery or post-fracture
Once again with age, the risk of having a fracture increases and seniors are most likely to have certain surgeries. For example, some people with arthritis will opt to have joint replacement surgery (more frequently knee or hip joints). After these types of surgeries or after a fracture, rehabilitation is necessary to facilitate walking, transfers and to regain strength/mobility to the affected joint.
Improve the capacity of the cardiorespiratory system
Many factors can alter the capacity of the cardiorespiratory system, (the system that contains the heart, the lungs and other structures in between). Obesity, smoking and certain chronic illnesses are a few examples of this. When this system is altered, a decrease in endurance is noticeable while doing certain tasks. The goal of physiotherapy is to increase the endurance of these people during their daily activities.
Maintaining independence
When you combine the benefits above, you obtain one of the main goals of physiotherapy for older adults: Maintaining independence. This benefit is extremely advantageous for the quality of life and dignity of the elderly. Independence is also beneficial for seniors’ surroundings that often need to act as caregivers when independence is lost.
There are many other benefits of physiotherapy for the elderly that were not discussed in this blog, such as mental health and social benefits. For more information on what physiotherapy can do for you or for an older adult in your surroundings, don’t hesitate to contact your physiotherapist!
