How physiotherapy can help the elderly

March 5, 2018

As you get older, your body will inevitably get weaker, your bone density will reduce, poorer coordination and stiffer joints. This can affect your mobility and balance, making it easier to fall and break bones. Therefore, it is important that you do your best to keep on top of your fitness and joint flexibility. Which is why we believe it is so important to help you increase these vital elements within your body.

The goal of physiotherapy is to reduce pain which you may encounter due to age, increase the mobility as you get older, by either increasing it or maintaining the level. Also it is to help restore and improve functionality as you get older.

The benefits of physiotherapy for the elderly

Maintaining independence

Going to see a physiotherapist can be daunting, however, they can help you maintain or even increase your independence. By restoring the mobility, balance and level of physical activity. This therefore will help you carry on doing the things that will help you keep your independence. Whether that be moving around the house – being able to live on your own, or to do social activities outside of the house.

Physiotherapists can increase, maintain and prevent decline in the movement of the joints, helping you carry on doing the day to day activities which get harder with age.

Building strength and stabilisation

The fear of falling or not being able to hold themselves up is one of the main reasons why elderly clients come to us. The fear of falling is one of the main reasons why people stop activity, as it will take much longer to recover than when you were younger.

However, by building your strength and stabilisation, this should help you continue doing the activities you do without the fear of falling or damaging bones etc.

Treatment of pain

There are many types of pain that physiotherapy for the elderly can relieve. Most of the pain experienced is usually caused by bad circulation, stiffness and an insufficient amount of physical exercise. By gaining more circulation should decrease the discomfort and increase the energy levels, which can be done by using a physiotherapist.

Arthritis is another common condition caused by age. It can be a very painful condition, and the more pain someone experiences, the less likely they are going to do any physical activity, which will only make the problem worse.

This is where physiotherapy can come into play, we will enable you to loosen the joints and increase the blood circulation to the joints. Which should decrease the amount of pain you are experiencing with the arthritis.

How we will help

Here at Physiotherapy matters, we will provide great care to help increase your physical wellbeing. We provide home visits, fall prevention and care home services.

Home visits

For many it is difficult to get to a clinic, therefore we provide home visits, so you can still get the same amount of care and service you require but from the comfort of your own home.

Fall prevention

Helping clients increase their muscle strength and balance. This will ultimately increase their activeness and exercise which will help the fall prevention.

Care home visits

For clients who are in a care home and cannot attend a clinic, we can come to care homes to give them private treatments. We also offer classes to encourage residents to stay active and to improve their mobility.
For more information about us and our 3 clinics in the North East, click here. We have clinics in Gosforth, Darras Hall and Newcastle city centre. Remember, we can also provide home visits if you are unable to visit one of our clinics.