What is Physiotherapy?
Physiotherapy, also known as physical therapy, is defined as a health discipline that aims to prevent and alleviate movement dysfunction and enhance physical capacity. The goal of physiotherapy is to help individuals achieve independent function.
Physiotherapy essentially does two things: provide reactive therapy when a person experiences discomfort, pain, or dysfunction, and offer proactive treatment, ensuring that a person’s body moves comfortably.
While many people think that physiotherapy is a reactionary treatment, National Council on Aging believes it is in fact, a highly proactive process – especially for seniors.
How Does Physiotherapy Assist Seniors?
We can categorize our bodily movements into four distinct categories: endurance, balance, strength, and flexibility. By suggesting exercises, physiotherapists can facilitate seniors in enhancing and sustaining their abilities in these movement forms.
Physical therapy can also help seniors manage recovery from movement dysfunctions like knee replacements, hip fractures, and strokes. Physiotherapy can help seniors regain the ability to learn adaptive ways to move and get back to their previous life quality.
How Does Physiotherapy Benefit Seniors?
Physiotherapy can treat ailments like arthritis. It can strengthen stiff joints and help seniors improve their mobility through different movement exercises. With time, seniors can increase their strength and become independent in their movement and dexterity.
Physiotherapy is a non-pharmaceutical and non-invasive treatment option that can build flexibility and strength to treat different movement issues and prevent injuries. It also helps seniors to maintain balance and stability and avoid slips and falls.
Along with this, physiotherapy can release endorphins and help seniors cope with post-retirement adjustment issues, lifestyle change, and physical pain.
Statistics show that in India, approximately 230 million people, with a large majority being women, have osteoporosis. Our bones are living tissues, and we can improve them through different exercises and movement techniques. Physiotherapy has proven to be an excellent tool for managing osteoporosis and can therefore indeed be highly beneficial to senior citizens in India.
The ability of a physiotherapist to gauge their patient’s movement standards is another benefit for seniors. A therapist will be able to evaluate if the patient’s mobility level will put them at risk for falls. They can also help seniors with strength exercises to help them improve their balance and mobility to prevent falls.
Are you looking for a comprehensive elder care service that ensures that your parents’ physiotherapy appointments are never missed?
senOcare provides comprehensive elder care services at home across multiple cities, including Delhi, Gurgaon and Noida. You can choose from various care packages designed to support senior citizens, or we can also customize a package that caters to your specific requirements. senOcare can also arrange a tele-consult for your parents and you with a doctor, so you can ask questions and make informed decisions. We offer a range of services related to health and fitness, home security and maintenance for elderly, technology help for elderly, forms and filing, and more.
Call us today on +91 8800 003 046 or email us at [email protected].
We’ll be happy to help.
