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Physiotherapy At Home In Sutton Coldfield For The Elderly

Physiotherapy At Home In Sutton Coldfield For The Elderly

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Physiotherapy At Home In Sutton Coldfield After A Knee Replacement

Physiotherapy At Home In Sutton Coldfield After A Knee Replacement

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Physiotherapy at Home in Sutton Coldfield After A Hip Replacement

Physiotherapy at Home in Sutton Coldfield After A Hip Replacement

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Mobile Physios To You At Home In Sutton Coldfield

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Physiotherapy Case Studies

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Mobile Physiotherapy Service At Your Home

Mobile Physiotherapy Service At Your Home

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Physiotherapy At Home In Sutton Coldfield For The Elderly Physiotherapy At Home In Sutton Coldfield For The Elderly

Physiotherapy At Home In Sutton Coldfield For The Elderly

Hello and welcome back again to the ThreeSpires Physiotherapy blog where we take a look at all things physiotherapy related. We will be carrying on with our series of articles highlighting how our home visit physiotherapy service helps patients in Sutton Coldfield. This time we will be looking over how our physiotherapists help elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield and what the problems are that elderly patients face in Sutton Coldfield. As community physios who provide a mobile community physiotherapy service in Sutton Coldfield many of our patients are elderly and we have gained a large amount of experience of working with this group of patients.

Before looking at how our mobile physiotherapists help elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield, we first need to briefly consider what we mean by elderly…

What is Elderly?

This sounds like quite a simple question but given the increase in life expectancy in the UK, defining exactly what we mean by “elderly” and when does someone become elderly is actually quite tricky. It is certainly something as physiotherapists that we need to consider with our patients in Sutton Coldfield. It used to be the case that anyone over the state retirement age of 65 would be considered “old” but as physios this really doesn’t seem a great way of identifying which patients we should think of as elderly, as many of our 65-year-old patients are very fit and strong. Instead, as physiotherapists we tend to look at how frail or poorly a patient is when thinking if we need to treat this patient as “elderly” rather than simply their age. Certainly, our physios in Sutton Coldfield, see many very fit 80-year-olds who they would not classify as elderly.

In the rest of this article about our home visit physiotherapy service in Sutton Coldfield for elderly patients, the term “elderly” will describe someone over the age of 65, quite frail and most likely in poor health.

Does Being Older Make A Difference To Physiotherapy?

It seems reasonably obvious that there will be differences between how a physiotherapist assesses and treats a 95year old patient versus a 25 year old patient in Sutton Coldfield. As a physio visiting people at their homes in Sutton Coldfield I can confirm that there are some quite clear differences between these two types of patients but what exactly are they:

  1. Muscle Loss/Sarcopaenia: After a certain age (75yrs is a commonly accepted number) it becomes hard to retain muscle mass and you will likely begin to lose it unless you are actively exercising to preserve it. This means that much older people may struggle to complete basic actions such as get out of a chair or car because they have lost muscle in their legs and back and do not have sufficient strength any more.
  2. Bone Density Drops/ Osteoporosis: for a range of reasons older people are much more susceptible to having weak bones or osteoporosis and this is especially true for older female patients. As physios visiting our patients at home in Sutton Coldfield it is important to be aware of this risk and adjust any treatments or exercises accordingly.
  3. Medical Conditions: as patients get older they tend to have more medical conditions such as diabetes, underactive thyroids and heart disease. Not all of these will affect their ability to have physiotherapy but any physiotherapist seeing them will need to have a good understanding of a range of conditions. The physio will also need to be able to decide if a particular medical condition will make some elements of rehab or exercise unwise.
  4. Medicines: as a physio visiting older patients in Sutton Coldfield it is necessary to have a good working knowledge of the range of medicines that they are likely to be taking. As the range of medical conditions increases with age, so does the number of medicines that they are likely to be taking. Again, as with medical conditions most medicines are not likely to affect any physiotherapy but there are cases when they will and as a physio seeing much older patients at home in Sutton Coldfield, it is necessary to be aware of this.
  5. Neurology: as one ages, the likelihood of having a neurological condition such as Parkinson’s Disease or having a stroke rapidly increases. As physiotherapists seeing elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield we have to have a keen understanding of neurological conditions and how these can affect our patients. For example if we are seeing a patient with Parkinson’s Disease in Sutton Coldfield, our physios need to know when they are likely to be taking their medication so that they can time their physiotherapy session to get the maximum benefit from the effects of the Parkinson’s medication.
  6. Falling: we have a whole article on the subject of falls for anyone interested in this topic Falls Prevention but briefly as people age the chances of having a fall increases. As physiotherapists visiting elderly patients at home or in care homes in Sutton Coldfield it is vital to be aware of this. Any physio seeing elderly patients needs to adjust their sessions and also their assessment to take this falls risk into account. For example as community physios in Sutton Coldfield an important part of the initial assessment will involve identifying any trip hazards in the patient’s home and looking at their falls risk.
  7. Dementia: a sad fact of life is that as people age the risk of having dementia or Alzheimer’s increases As physiotherapists visiting elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield it is very common for us to provide physio for patients with dementia. Having dementia makes physiotherapy more challenging but by no means impossible and it is essential that any physio seeing elderly patients has experience of working with patients with dementia and understands how to adjust their physio sessions accordingly For more information on physiotherapy for people living with dementia, have a read of our article: Physiotherapy for People Living with Dementia.
  8. Carers: many of our elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield have carers coming into their home multiple times a day and this is something that our physiotherapists need to be aware of. As we age, the chance of requiring care increases for many reasons such as difficulty walking, a recent illness or dementia. As physios visiting elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield, understanding the importance of care visits and scheduling our physiotherapy sessions around care is a vital part of the role when working with elderly patients.
  9. Resident in a Care Home: as with having care come into your home, the probability of staying in a care or nursing home in Sutton Coldfield also increases with age. Our mobile physios have a large amount of experience of providing physiotherapy to elderly patients in care homes in Sutton Coldfield. Working as a physiotherapist in a care home requires understanding the roles of all the staff in the home and also how these staff will interact and work with the elderly patient in order to maximise the results of physiotherapy.
  10. Relatives: a large proportion of our elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield have their physiotherapy sessions organised by a relative such as their son or daughter. This can sometimes be because the patient is unwell and unable at present to organise their own physio but often it is because they have dementia. Sometimes it is simply because the relative is the person who has spotted that things are not going well and has decided to take action. Our mobile physios have a lot of experience of working with and communicating with the relatives of their elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield. Being able to communicate clearly and with empathy with a relative is an essential skill of any physio working with elderly patients and is something that we pride ourselves upon as physiotherapists.

Hopefully the factors above have given you a better idea of how physiotherapy might be different for an elderly patient and also how the physio involved might also need to change their approach or have different skills. A physiotherapist only seeing fit and healthy sporting patients will need to develop a whole new set of skills and experience to work with elderly patients. As such we ensure that all of our mobile physios have a large amount of experience of working with elderly patients and if you have a look at our testimonials page hopefully this will be clear.

What Is The Difference Between Physiotherapy For The Elderly & The Young/Fit & Healthy?

Well, as I have described above there are a whole range of factors that make physio for the young different to physio for the elderly and not the smallest factor will be that the physio will undoubtedly need to be more experienced. Having a range of medical knowledge to cope with the larger number of medical conditions that someone elderly may have takes time to develop and this is one of the reasons that we only have highly experienced physiotherapists seeing our patients in Sutton Coldfield.

To give a full answer and more detail, I think it will be good to consider a home visit physiotherapy session in Sutton Coldfield for a patient in their 20s versus  a patient in their 90s. We can then look at how our physio needed to make adaptations to the sessions to fit each of the patients’ needs.

Female 20s Physiotherapy Session at Home in Sutton Coldfield:

The patient sent an email asking for an appointment because she had shoulder pain that had come on after a gym session in Sutton Coldfield 2 weeks ago and seemed to be worsening. A physiotherapy assessment at her home in Sutton Coldfield was booked for later in the week and our mobile physio went out to her property in Sutton Coldfield with a plinth/massage table. The patient let our physio into her home and the physiotherapy assessment took place in the living room. To begin with the physio and the patient discussed her shoulder pain to find out what had happened when the problem began and what the patient wanted. During this discussion our physiotherapist found that there was no significant medical history and she wasn’t taking any medication. The physical part of the assessment then took place with the physio watching the patient move her shoulder and her strength was assessed. The patient then moved onto the plinth where the physio physically assessed her shoulder, back and neck by palpating (touching) and also checked her strength in the shoulder. After a brief chat to explain what the physio had found and a diagnosis, treatment of massage and some manipulation around the shoulder and upper back was given. At the end of the session the physiotherapist prescribed some shoulder strengthening exercises a. A follow up session was booked with the physio for a 2 weeks so that the physio could progress the strengthening work, the patient made a note of this herself and paid via card machine. Now, anyone that has seen a physio or had private physiotherapy in Sutton Coldfield in the past may well be thinking that this is all very obvious stuff. However, please bear with me and read the section about our 90yr old patient in Sutton Coldfield you will see some stark differences in the physiotherapy sessions.

Male 90s Physiotherapy Session at Home in Sutton Coldfield:

In this case rather than booking the physiotherapy assessment himself, the session was booked by the patient’s son and initial communication was via email. Through these messages the son gave us a description of the problem and asked to be there for at least the first session at his father’s home in Sutton Coldfield. The patient’s son described the main issue being that of falls and back pain.  Because the patient’s son worked and had limited availability it took a week or so to arrange the initial physiotherapy assessment at the property in Sutton Coldfield.  It is also important to note that the patient had 4 visits of care a day meaning that timing the initial physiotherapy assessment between these was critical. On the day of the initial physiotherapy assessment our physiotherapist came to the patient’s home and was let in by his son as the patient was unable to answer the door himself. The patient was in the lounge, sat in a “rise and recline” chair with a wheeled-zimmer frame next to him and he had a catheter in-situ with the leg bag covered by his trousers. The session began with a discussion with both the patient and his son. Despite the patient having capacity, the son was the one to give most of the detail about past medical history and the general background which had led up to needing a physiotherapy assessment at home in Sutton Coldfield. Although, as stated, the patient had capacity and was able to make decisions the physiotherapist rapidly became aware that both his hearing and memory were poor and he struggled to recount enough detail to complete an effective assessment. As such our physio, involved the patient whenever possible but also put most of the initial questions to the patient’s son as clearly he had most of the key information. The physical section of the assessment was the next part and this quite clearly showed the patient found it very hard to get up to standing even with his chair raised, he was overall very weak and deconditioned, balance was very poor and he became fatigued very quickly. Our physiotherapist was able to conclude that his back pain was secondary to general weakness, deconditioning and lack of movement and that falls were a result of poor balance and strength reduction. The physio also identified a series of trip hazards in the property such as rugs that had the edges sticking up that were also contributing to the patient having falls. To finish, our physio ran through a programme of exercises with both the patient and his son and advised that these needed to be done daily. Further physiotherapy sessions at the patient’s home in Sutton Coldfield were agreed with these physio sessions initially being twice weekly. The son paid for this initial physiotherapy assessment via card but preferred to pay for future sessions via bank transfer as he would not be able to attend sessions regularly and he had power of attorney for his father.

I think it is clear from the 2 sessions that even though both patients had a physio visit them at home in Sutton Coldfield, there are significant differences between the sessions and that the physiotherapist needed to make a significant number of adaptations to the sessions. Below are some of the key differences between physiotherapy for the fit and healthy and for the elderly:

  1. Relatives organising and attending physiotherapy sessions: unlike younger patients in Sutton Coldfield who contact us themselves and organise their own physio, many of our elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield will have the booking for the initial physiotherapy assessment made by their relative. During the initial physiotherapy assessment at home in Sutton Coldfield the relative will often be present as they want to understand what is possible and what needs to happen. This means that our physiotherapist will usually need to discuss progress, goals and best management with the relative. This requires a different set of communication skills for the physiotherapist and takes time to develop and feel comfortable with, which is why all of our mobile physios in Sutton Coldfield are highly experienced.
  2. Carers visiting the patient in Sutton Coldfield: many of our elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield have carers coming into their home 4 times a day (some even have live in carers). This gives the physiotherapist a challenge (and us as a home visit physiotherapy practice) in relation to scheduling our physiotherapy sessions. In general, we need to avoid scheduling physiotherapy sessions as the same time as care visits for our patients in Sutton Coldfield, but care visits often vary daily in their timings and physio needs to work around these as much as possible.
  3. Long-term physiotherapy is needed: some of our elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield need a different and more on-going approach to their physiotherapy as they have conditions that mean if they stop physiotherapy after they have improved then they rapidly lose mobility and strength. As a community physiotherapy practice in Sutton Coldfield our experience with elderly patients has show that initially elderly patients may need to be seen several times a week, to give them a boost and help them to improve as quickly as possible. However, after this period of intense home visit physiotherapy our elderly patients often need our physiotherapist to keep visiting weekly in order to maintain the gains that they have made.
  4. More complex medical histories: our elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield almost always have lengthy and quite complex medical histories. Being a physio who works with elderly patients at home means that you need to have a broad knowledge of medical conditions which takes time to develop and is again why all of our home visit physios in Sutton Coldfield are highly experienced. Physiotherapists that see elderly patient also need a good understanding of medications, likely side effects and how these may affect them in a particular session.
  5. Slower sessions: most elderly patients will require more rest in their physiotherapy session than our younger and fitter patients in Sutton Coldfield. If a patient is in their 90s and has recently had an infection, then they will need significant time in between each exercise for their system to recover. As our physiotherapy sessions with our elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield are always one hour as this allows the patient to recover and talk with their physio about any issues.
  6. Falling: another factor that any physio seeing elderly patients needs to take into account is: the risk of falls and a general reduction in balance. All of our physiotherapists working with elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield have a large amount of experience of working with patients that are at high risk of falls and take this into account in their sessions. Balance is quite commonly reduced in elderly patients and our mobile physiotherapists in Sutton Coldfield are always cautious about the potential for their elderly patients to have a fall and injure themselves.

Okay, I think we have covered a large amount about how our mobile physiotherapy service for elderly patients in Sutton Coldfield works and what our physios can help with and why physiotherapy for the elderly is different. I hope that you have found this article about physiotherapy at home in Sutton Coldfield for the elderly useful. Should anyone you know need be elderly and frail and need help with physiotherapy at home in Sutton Coldfield please get in touch and one of our mobile physios would be happy to visit them at home. Just to remind you we are a home visit physiotherapy service in Sutton Coldfield and our physios are mobile and will come out to you at home.

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