How to Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle When You're Living with a Disability

At Best Home Care, we’re always striving to help those in need find the best home healthcare services available. Whether you or a loved one needs pediatric homecare, disability homecare, or homecare for the elderly, we can help you find the best personal care assistants, home nurses, or home caregivers that suit your unique needs and lifestyle. Part of working as a caregiver means understanding how to incorporate healthy exercise habits into the daily activities of the person for whom you're caring. However, this can be difficult for an individual living with a disability.

For this reason, we decided to create a list of some ways that caregivers can help their clients stay active when they are living with a physical disability:

1. Come up with a realistic set of goals. Whether it is to improve mobility, increase strength or stamina, or just to get some fresh air every day.

2. Remember “traditional” workouts aren’t for everyone. There are plenty of ways to stay active while living with a disability, even if it’s just doing some stretching, light yoga, gardening, or going for a walk around the park.
3. Understand the disability and what exercises would be most beneficial to the recipient. For someone using a wheelchair, strength exercises can help to improve mobility. For someone living with arthritis, water aerobics can help relieve stiffness and discomfort.
4. Find ways to tone down high intensity workouts. For instance, if someone enjoys walking or jogging but experiences stiffness and pain in joints, “aqua-jogging” (jogging in water) can be a great alternative. If a person wants to tone or strengthen muscles, try resistance bands instead of heavy weights.
5. Make it fun! Exercise should be fun and not feel like a chore. Find something you and your client enjoy like a beginner’s dance class, a beautiful park to go for a walk, or listening to music or an audiobook while doing stretches.

For more great exercise ideas for individuals living with disability, contact Best Home Care today at 651-330-2550, or visit our website to learn more about our professional homecare services!