This month’s Senior Living LIVE! episode explores a crucial topic related to the health and wellness of seniors–the role of rehab in senior living wellness. Jennifer French with Powerback Rehabilitation joins The Arbor Company at the beautiful Opus East Memphis, sharing more on the different types of rehab available and how rehab can help keep older adults living their most independent and fulfilled lives.
In the episode, Jennifer shares what makes her so passionate about helping seniors as a tenured and experienced physical therapist, from watching them achieve their health and wellness goals to helping them thrive and keep doing the activities they love. Her and her team always begin by getting to know each individual on a personal level–their likes, dislikes, goals, favorite pastimes, and much more, setting a strong and tailored foundation for the therapeutic care they provide.
From diving more into the various therapies provided by her team, including physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech/cognitive therapy, and sharing more about the signs to look for when it’s time for you or a loved one to consider starting a therapy regime, there is so much to unpack in this informative session.
Partnerships like this with Powerback are simply some of the many ways The Arbor Company provides compassionate care to those we serve. The health and wellness of the seniors who call Arbor home is always our top priority, and by working with experienced local professionals who are specialists in their field, we’re ensuring everyone has access to the active retirement lifestyle they’ve always dreamed about. Learn more in the full episode and book your complete tour at one of our beautifully designed communities near you.
Transcript
Hi everyone and welcome to Senior Living Live. We are on-site at Opus East Memphis in beautiful Memphis, Tennessee and I'm so excited. Today we are joined by Jennifer French who actually is here on site, with PowerBack Rehab, and you help support all things wellness and rehabilitation for the residents here.
Absolutely.
Tell us just a little bit about yourself.
So I'm a native Memphian. I have been a physical therapist for all of my life. I decided I wanted to do this when I was in high school and I went for it and I've never looked back. I love helping residents achieve their goals and watch them thrive and just love their life as much as possible.
Can you tell us a little bit about how a partnership between a company like PowerBack and a senior living community, how that partnership can really help residents thrive?
Absolutely. We really get to know the residents and their families and loved ones as they move into the community. We find out their likes and their hobbies and things even that they don't like, and it really helps develop that relationship so that when they need our services, we can meet them where they are and help them work on their goals.
Talk to me a little bit about the different therapies that you all offer.
Sure. We have the whole gamut, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy, and I like to tell people that we are working together as a team, but with different focuses. So as a physical therapist, I'm thinking about lower body, core strength, getting from point a to point b. We focus a lot on balance because falls and older adults can just be detrimental, but really just the mobility part, getting up and down, in and out of bed, walking around this beautiful community, whether it's using a walker or a cane or even sometimes a wheelchair, and just keeping folks moving as much as possible.
An occupational therapist on the other hand looks more at like those daily living skills, so they're focusing on dressing, bathing, grooming, all of those things that we all can do until we can't, and then they help them regain those skills. But I think OTs also work outside the box, so we've had folks who have pets and they were struggling with pet care, or maybe, a lady has always ironed her husband's shirts, and she misses ironing. Just the task of that. My OT has brought in her own ironing board before just to work on that activity. So that's really cool to watch that outside of the box thinking.
And then speech therapy. I think speech therapists got a bad rep as far as the naming of their profession, because it's not just about speech and talking, but they also focus on cognition and helping people keep their thoughts organized. They can look at swallowing skills, so if somebody is having trouble, choking with meals or with certain textures, they can work on that and really help them continue to be safe with communication and eating.
Incredible. And you explained all of those so beautifully. Thank you. I honestly didn't know all of that. So I've learned something today. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Tell me a little bit about how and you've already explained it so well, but just how these therapies and working with residents helps them age in place and live confidently here.
Right. Well, as I said, we do get to know our residents very well. We like to continue to have relationships with them even after they move in, so we can pick up on subtle nuances that they might start having, like a little unsteadiness or maybe a little forgetfulness, and try to address those issues, nip them in the bud before they become big issues.
Yeah. That makes a huge difference. And you all because you know those residents so well, you're kind of a first line of defense, noticing those small changes.
Right. Right.
Are you all doing any kind of out you've already talked a little bit about outside the box with the ironing, which why anyone would wanna keep ironing. Ironing is beyond me, but great for her. But is there anything else that maybe new technologies or maybe just some things that are a little out of the box that maybe even some of our viewers at home could try by the by themselves or bring up to their, therapist?
Well, as I said, we focus a lot on balance as physical therapists. So we've got, I call them toys, but they're just interesting little things that people don't normally think about that help improve proprioception and just keeping them upright on their feet, keeping them steady. My occupational therapist is a dementia care specialist, so she has lots of tips and tricks in her toolbox that help people with cognition and, memory and focus, and those are all really cool things. And then down in the fitness center here at Opus, we of course have the Technogym equipment, which is really cool. Residents can get a wristband like a Fitbit and keep up with their progress that they're making on the equipment.
I have seen that, it's just very cool. Tell me a little bit, do you have any, you know, it's we're, we're all about the residents' well-being and making everyone as confident and happy as possible in their daily life. Do you have any kind of cool wins or case studies that you've noticed here since you've been here?
Oh, that's a good question. We have a lot of wins, one of the ones that comes to mind is one of our residents in Reflections. She came in and was having some difficulty getting up and down off her sofa. It was a kind of a low couch and soft cushions and so we worked with her on getting strength back in her legs and in her core and kind of focused on some better positioning skills, so that now she's completely independent in getting up and down and walking in the Art Reflections area to the dining room for meals and to the activity room for fun activities.
That's incredible. Do you have any advice? We've talked so much about how you're able to partner with the senior living community at large, which just adds to the amazingness of senior living. But do you have any advice for maybe, some loved ones or caregivers at home or even, seniors at home that might be thinking, oh, maybe I need to start worrying about this. Mhmm. And they're not in senior living just yet.
Right, well, I think that always if people start, struggling to get up and down from different surfaces, in and out of bed, in and out of the shower, those are things that, you know, are red flags, like maybe I could use a little help in doing something to prevent a fall from happening. As I said, with the swallowing, you know, getting choked when you eat or drink something, it could just mean we need to change some textures or try different, methods of swallowing, like taking a bite of food and then taking a drink of liquid, those are all things that we can address with therapy.
Yeah, amazing. Well, Jennifer, I cannot thank you enough for taking time out of what I assume is an incredible busy day from all you've told us. This has been so valuable for everyone who will end up watching this, so we really appreciate it.
My pleasure.
Thank you so much for watching. If you are interested in learning more about topics like this around wellness or senior living, you can see more videos at seniorlivinglive dot com. If you're interested in learning more about this beautiful community and what Jennifer is doing here, you can go to opus east memphis dot com. For now, that's it. Thanks everybody. Bye.
