COMMUNITY RESOURCES AND SERVICES
R•R
COMMUNITY RESOURCES AND SERVICES
Longevity Through Physical Therapy Healthy aging looks different for everyone. A person’s prior health status, genetics, and life experiences can all weigh heavily on one’s ability to age well. Part of a healthy aging process is maintaining independence in your later years. One important component to healthy aging is how well you can maintain your mobility. Aspects of maintaining mobility include adequate balance, strength, and endurance. As you age, the likelihood that additional co-morbidities (other complicating medical conditions) is also likely higher. This means that addressing the foundations of mobility (such as balance, strength, and endurance) may not be a straight forward proposition when seeking to maintain your activity level. Research concludes that appropriate strength training and cardiovascular exercise training is a key component to the treatment and management of most chronic illnesses that affect the aging adult. For many, the main barrier to implementing an exercise as medicine approach is uncertainty and the fear of causing more harm. How can you properly perform the exercises needed to address the impairments requiring treatment while working around other complicating medical conditions including arthritis, joint pain (knee
pain), back pain or shoulder pain? A physical therapist (PT) is uniquely qualified to understand your individual medical history as well as the difference between “abnormal” and “normal” aging and physiology. A properly trained PT can guide you on how to best and safely improve the foundations of mobility in the presence of complicating medical conditions. Physical therapists and the field of physical therapy can help lead the way for those desiring to age well. Physical therapy can even be used as a preventative medicine to ward off many of the prominent illnesses
80 BOISE AND THE TREASURE VALLEY – OCTOBER 2018–MARCH 2019