15 July 2022
Investing in therapy for the elderly
Earlier this year, Southampton Hospitals Charity announced that we were renovating and refurbishing the gym on our Medicine for Older People Department.
Rachel McCafferty, Advanced Physiotherapist, comments: “While the new area is not fully operational, excitingly we’ve now seen the first patients coming back to use the gym with our therapy team.
One of the specialist pieces of equipment we are using is a MOTOmed exercise device. This was developed by Medimotion for people with movement restrictions, and it complements the exercises already used by our teams.
We want to thank Medimotion who were so inspired by the efforts of our team, that they donated an additional MOTOmed to supplement the one bought by the Charity.
These allow us to do both cardiovascular and strength resistance exercises for lower and upper limbs. It is fully flexible so it is suitable for patients who can stand, those in a wheelchair, and we can even take them to the patient’s bedside.
This is just the start of the journey for the patient to understand exactly what exercise and activity their body is capable of.
Strength training is crucial, especially with elderly patients, as there is evidence that strength and resistance work can help in the reduction of falls if you do enough over time. We can tailor this equipment to the patients, and train one arm or leg if a particular weakness is identified.
Our hope is that if we can show our patients that they can do this, even in hospital, that they can pick this up when discharged, either through exercises at home, in exercise classes, or gym programmes suggested by their GP.
It is also more than just exercise! There are games which the patients can play, including a racetrack where you can see you can see your car going round which is fuelled by your legs or arms!”
Support our elderly patients today
Our Medicine for Older People Department is innovative and award-winning, helping us to set a whole new standard in caring for around 4,500 older patients every year.
The gym refurbishment is the first of many changes we are bringing to the department. Help us to show our patients that they are worth investing in.