Could preventing deconditioning be your New Year's Resolution?
Deconditioning happens quickly and easily, and it is difficult to recover from when you are elderly. While it can happen anytime, people are at greater risk in the winter – it’s cold, we move less, we are potentially more vulnerable to accidents.
The biggest risk however is that our care systems, and hospitals in particular, are under huge pressure, people feel busy and often stressed, and strive to prioritise demands and keep patients safe. It’s a lot.
But the price of that time waiting on a trolley, the commode instead of a walk to the loo, the falls alarm that makes you frightened to move, that’s a lot too. It’s your dignity, your confidence but most of all your future mobility.
Please watch this film, highlighting how deconditioning as a result of not mobilising is one of the biggest threats to patients in hospitals. A number of preventable complications can be solved by getting up, getting dressed, and moving. Every move counts towards a healthier life. Please share it with your teams.
HealthService 360
Produced by Firewood Pictures
Even when we know about deconditioning, we sometimes need to pause, look at our environment and our practice, and ask ourselves if we are doing our best to get this person back to their life and their loved ones without avoidable deconditioning.
It’s often the little things, the functional stuff, not being too kind or too quick with your help, and not passing judgement on the safety of someone’s imperfect movement.
You can join the #endPJParalysis Facebook group HERE