Exercise in Geriatric Rehabilitation (Dawson - Online)

Course overview

The latest practice analysis identifies over 53 percent of rehabilitation patients are over the age of 65 years. Many of these older adults have functional limitations due to the fact that older adults are generally less physically active than their younger counterparts or due to difficulties returning to normal function following illness or injury. Exercise is a non pharmacological intervention that can have beneficial effects on multiple domains of function. However, the application of exercise by health care professionals is often under dosed leading to minimal changes in this patient population. Older adults can pose unique challenges for clinicians due to their sedentary lifestyle and potential for complex medical history. Rehabilitation professionals are experts in movement science and should play an integral role in prescription of appropriate physical activity to ensure maximal levels of success with older adults, so we need to do better for this new majority of patients. This course will provide you with a better understanding of primary aging processes that may affect an older adult's functional status. An evidence-based approach for exercise prescription will be discussed to ensure that exercise science principles are used during plan of care development.