Thanks for returning to the ThreeSpiresPhysiotherapy blog page, today we will be continuing looking at the services that we offer in the community and the benefits that they provide to our physiotherapy patients in Staffordshire. Physiotherapy is such a broad profession and we offer such a large range of home visit physiotherapy services that it is helpful to look in turn at each of the services that we offer and review the benefits that they provide to our patients. In this blog I will examine the elderly rehabilitation and mobility service that we deliver at home to patients in Staffordshire and the West Midlands.

With people living longer and longer (average life expectancy in the UK is approx. 82yrs!) there is an increasing demand for help with keeping mobile, fit and strong and maintaining a good quality of life especially after a period of illness and hospitalisation.

Our home visit elderly mobility and rehabilitation service aims to maximise mobility, return elderly patients to their previous levels of mobility and give them an increase in quality of life after a decrease in fitness and mobility.

Decreases in fitness, strength and mobility can happen for a number of reasons to an elderly person, often it occurs after a sudden illness and extended period in hospital. These patients although they are deemed medically fit by the doctors are often feeling very weak, have had little access to physiotherapy in hospital and may be needing to use a frame or stick despite being able to mobilise independently prior to admission.

Others may have experienced a slow decline in mobility and strength for no clear reason - commonly they will have initially started using a stick and then progressed to using a frame, started stooping whilst walking and have generally become much less active. For each of these groups of patients physiotherapy at home offers an ideal opportunity to improve strength, fitness, mobility, independence and quality of life. Many of the patients that we see require only a few sessions as the main problem is that they have lost confidence in their abilities and simply need a guidance and advice from a professional to get them back on their feet and working towards returning to their old selves.

To help with understanding the benefits of our service it could be helpful to look at a short case study (details have been anonymised to protect confidentiality). We received a call from the an elderly female patient's daughter regarding the possibility of physiotherapy for her mother after being in hospital for a week. The patient had been discharged home but had received minimal community NHS physiotherapy input and was struggling to get out of a chair or bed and was finding walking more than a few steps with a frame very difficult. Prior to admission she was mobilising independently around the home with only two sticks and was generally reasonably independent. After only 4 sessions of physiotherapy at home the patient was much improved - she was able to get in and out of a chair happily, was walking well with her frame and was able to walk with only light support from hands and was able to use steps to get and out of the house with some support. Although not quite back to her previous levels she had made a great initial recovery and should return to her previous levels of mobility over the next few months.

 I hope that you have found this blog to be helpful and if you or an elderly relative would like help with rehabilitation and returning to full fitness then please get in touch - you can call us on 0788 428 1623, email using enquiries@threespiresphysiotherapy.co.uk or use the contact form on the main menu above.