What Is It?
The Healthy Aging: Seniors’ Mobility Toolkit for Physiotherapists was published in 2018 by Physiotherapy Alberta to provide a resource for physiotherapists to help promote healthy aging in community-dwelling older adults. Mobility issues are common in older adults and identifying and addressing modifiable risk factors is important to improving the quality of life for older adults.
The toolkit reviews the modifiable risk factors in mobility loss including range of motion, strength and balance. It then offers a variety of evidence-based assessment tools that are both inexpensive and easy-to-use for clinicians.
Finally a summary table outlines key cut-off scores for the assessment tools outlined including an indication of the relevant modifiable risk factors associated with each test.
Our Thoughts
This is a concise, easy-to-digest resource for physiotherapists. It provides a well structured document that can assist clinicians in identifying easy-to-use tests to help assess older adults in their clinical environment. The authors of the toolkit also highlight that these tests can be used for both assessment as well as outcome measures for individual treatment programs.
The tests are well described along with key benchmark numbers along with links to an overview of the tests. The table at the end of the toolkit (Using the Toolkit section) is helpful and a handy print-out to have readily available in the clinic.
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