It’s easy for the world to feel like a more frightening place as we age. That’s for plenty of reasons and the biggest one is that the thought of a slip or fall is going to feel more around the corner with each passing year. Even when carrying around that stress, it’s important to not miss out on the best your life has to offer, be that making more memories with your family or seeing as much of the world around you as possible. 

That’s why physical therapy shouldn’t just happen as the means to recover from an injury. When it is used as a preventative measure, more of your independence will remain intact and a greater, more confident, quality of life will remain in place. For those unsure if physical therapy is what’s needed for them at their current stage of life, here’s more information to make the decision all the easier. 

Keeping Independence

As mentioned, physical therapy shouldn’t just be something that’s used for recovery after an injury. By using it in a preventive sense, the weakening of bone density and muscle degradation can be slowed down dramatically. That will happen to everyone as they age making what once seemed like normal, daily activities somewhat of a challenge. 

By taking on therapy that focuses on strength and balance, both flexibility and coordination can be improved making simple things like walking, getting groceries, and driving less difficult. If activities such as those seem like a struggle to do alone, there’s no reason to feel like it needs to stay that way.

Chronic Pain

The older an individual is, the more likely they are to suffer from long term pain caused by common issues such as diabetes and arthritis. Conditions such as those will greatly impact anyone’s quality of life if left uncared for and untreated. A therapy regimen can be developed specifically to improve any mobility issues and reduce pain, swelling, and inflammation. 

While the idea of therapy is often associated with the recovery of an injury, such as a fall, it should never be viewed only through that lens as an individual care plan, for example, can be created that solely focuses on improving blood sugar levels with the goal of reducing complications.

Mental Wellbeing

Our physical and cognitive capabilities might feel like separate parts of ourselves to focus on, but both make us whole and directly feed into one another. When simple physical tasks start to feel overwhelming, that will come with a hit to our confidence as well. It is easy for someone to feel like it’s time to give up on doing a lot of what makes us who we are.

As balance and strength improve, through therapy, one’s state of mind and confidence will start to skyrocket. Another way in which mental health improves through therapy is by having additional relationships in the patient’s life. Many seniors today feel socially isolated once they are no longer in the workforce and having their physical therapist as an additional companion is not to be understated.