Elderly Needs Mechanical Assistants

Elderly Needs Mechanical Assistants.
Two-thirds of folk over the age of 65 indigence help completing the tasks of daily living, either from special devices such as canes, scooters and bathroom grip bars or from another person, new research shows. "If people are finding ways to successfully deal with their impotence with help from devices or people, or they're reducing their activity because of a disability, I muse these groups are probably missed when we look at public health needs," said bone up author Vicki Freedman, a research professor at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research. "How community adapt to their disabilities is important, and it helps us identify who needs public fitness attention".

The study identified five levels on the disability spectrum: people who are fully able; consumers who use special devices to work around their disability; people who have reduced the frequency of their activity but record no difficulty; people who report difficulty doing activities by themselves, even when using special devices; and people who get helper from another person. One expert said the findings shed light on how many seniors are struggling with varied levels of disability.

"The fact that about 25 percent of people are unable to perform some activities of constantly living without assistance wasn't surprising," said Dr Stanley Wainapel, clinical superintendent of the department of rehabilitation medicine at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City. "What was compelling to me was that this study gave me more information on the other 75 percent. Just because 25 percent cannot do at least one endeavour of daily living doesn't mean the other 75 percent can get along just fine.

It's not as black and white as we might have thought. There's a Twilight Zone territory between those who are perfectly fine and those who aren't, and these are the people who can probably be helped most with rehabilitation psychotherapy or assistive devices. Results of the study were released online Dec 12, 2013 in the American Journal of Public Health. Data for the trend research came from the 2011 National Health and Aging Trends Study.