Mobilization in Senior Citizen Residencies
By: Yakob Abdul Rahman. W. Scholer)

It is the general expectation and perhaps believe that when a senior citizen is being placed in a ‘home’ all his needs are automatically taken care of. Unfortunately that’s nothing more than just wishful thinking than reality particularly here in Malaysia. These homes have a range of names such as old folks home, senior citizen residency, recovery and rehabilitation homes, rehabilitation centres and many more such attractive names. No one really knows what or how to interpret such names. They may all but conform to the minimum standard of what their names really describe. The majority confirms that there is few exception. I have taken the pains to visit many of them, yet I have not seen one that deserves the names on their entrance.
One of the most striking problems these places seem to demonstrate is the total unawareness of what gerontological nursing is all about. Most of these centres are merely residencies of elderly and nursing dependent persons. These inmates or residents get their food and basic care, often provided by people who have never attended a single lecture in nursing, much less any professional knowledge or skill in relation to their duties. One of the most striking observations I made was the almost total absence of any form of mobilization of their residents. Besides appropriate nutrition and basic nursing is the aspect of keeping elderly people mobile. The benefit of mobilization can be found in the thousands of pages in the website ‘Google’. Yet, one gets the impression as if we are living in the 'stone age' of nursing care of senior citizen and the necessity of their capability to be mobile.
This is not surprising as many of these homes are managed by unprofessional profiteers, whose only concern is the amount of profit they get at the end of every month.
Families however often got misled by the well described flyers with pictures of all kinds of activities lined up for their residents. Some of these flyers even have 'comments' from alleged relatives of their residents, praising the homes for their professional approach.
Let us get back to the point of mobilization.
It is a well known fact that muscle depletion in the elderly is one of the most threatening developments due to under-using of the muscle. Senior citizens have a whole range of physical as well as mental conditions which makes them tend to become sedentary instead of being active. While physical conditions such as paralysis, joint ailments, overweight etc. are often a reality but no less is the emotional condition manifesting negatively such as condition(s) as depression and lethargy. In such situations it is not surprising that the unskilled care givers are at a loss in meeting with this dilemma, leading to the steady deterioration of the residents’ condition. When a person neglects exercises and mobility a whole range of medical and psychological conditions will crop up.
These centres have little choice but to engage qualified physiotherapists or exercises motivators (people specially qualified in dealing with elderly people).

Particularly when the elderly persons have specific needs and these must be understood and be addressed, to ensure a maximum of benefit approach for the residents.
Amongst these are: motivation, communication, application and creativities that not only are muscle benefiting but more entertaining and enjoying. Using music to create natural body movements are simple but most potent applications.

Group activities are a further stimulant as it creates a WE effect and can lead to croup cohesion.
A good therapist is one who manages to get the greatest response to his motivation.
Even simple forms of physical activities are better than none. Not providing physical activities is simply equal to neglect of residents’ care requirements.

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