How Physical Therapy Can Benefit Seniors

Physical therapy’s purpose is to restore and improve functionality, reduce pain, and increase mobility for better strength and balance.

While physical therapy can be important for everyone, it plays a vital role in the lives of seniors. The practice can help them recover from potentially debilitating conditions as well as is a preventative measure, can provide pain relief, and overall can help seniors keep up with their physical hobbies. 

Read below about how physical therapy can benefit seniors:

Reactive Role 

When a senior suffers something such as a hip fracture or goes through a hip replacement, knee replacement, stroke, etc., their ability for physical activity decreases significantly. Physical therapy can help seniors get back, or at least closer to, their previous quality of life in regard to their ability to complete daily activities. 

Additionally, physical therapists can teach seniors adaptive ways to complete various physical activities, as an incident or procedure may have altered the way they are able to do certain tasks.

Proactive Role

Physical therapy is often thought as a solely reactive measure for injury and health conditions, but it also has a place as a proactive, or preventative, measure.

Physical therapy can:

• Reduce the risk of a fall: Physical therapy can increase a seniors’ balance through balance and strengthening exercises, and physical therapists can teach seniors techniques to prevent a fall.
• Lower the risk of injury: Keeping your body as strong as possible can help prevent injury. Physical therapy can help a senior gain strength as well as mobility, which can lower the risk of injury
• Slow effects of arthritis and osteoporosis: These age-related issues can reduce mobility, and working with a physical therapist can slow down the effects of these conditions.

Help Navigate and Continue Physical Activity

As we age, it may become more difficult to keep up with physical activities and generally move our bodies consistently. Physical therapists can recommend specific exercises to help seniors sustain their physical activity levels as well as restore or improve their balance, endurance, flexibility and strength.

Some examples of possible physical therapy exercises include:

• Chair exercises
• Balance exercises
• Bed exercises
• Core strengthening exercises
• Upper body exercises
• Endurance exercises
• Hip replacement exercises

To learn more about physical therapy services at Collington, click here.