Wellness
I find it fascinating that after 30+ years of being a physical therapist in the healthcare field, I have experienced a multitude of holistic and functional approaches, with a vivid variation of options even for the same problem.
The science and research that supports it can often contradict or be inconclusive from one year to the next. Rene Descartes, the famous French philosopher, mathematician and scientist: "Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power ". And herein presents the issue. How do I "get better"? Not so easy. Your condition at an advanced age is never a finite issue. So many layers and reasons of how you broke your hip, the slow decline of balance and not feeling up to doing the exercise class. The slow onset of losing sleep or not eating right, it's not just one thing and there is not only one solution.
When looking at the big picture, we know that "Dividing each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it." Thanks again, Rene!
Therefore small changes create larger improvements. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. We make short term and long term goals, even sub goals. Therefore each day, the goal would be to aim to live your best life, make wise choices, and know that you are either fighting disease or feeding it. Wellness looks at the whole picture: lifestyle, nutrition, stress and other outlying and underlying factors.
Through various methods, immense reading and networking with other related professionals, it has opened another chapter in my practice. I cannot claim to have a specialty in wellness, only that I deeply care about it. As a matter of fact, there is poor consistency amongst various “wellness degree“ and Health coaching programs. Therefore all I can do is share information, bring knowledge, and aim for optimum health. I want to help you!
Many articles support a multitude of changes that need to take place to elevate and improve your day, week, month, year and decade. These are not changes that we can easily undergo all at once. Primarily your doctor should approve and give you their blessing if you are undergoing a lifestyle shift. The changes will not be visible on a day-to-day basis. Most of it begins with mindset, and as with many other revisions of daily habits, modifications and thought process behind decisions, control in the outcome is partially up to you. We are not victims, but victors: it's a tough pill to swallow, but the help can be sought and found, ultimately always up to you.
As part of wellness I work with the whole person. and as my specialty of physical therapy involves the human body in the physical format, there are constant reminders of other systems that are influenced. As part of my 35 years in practice I have also met local and useful connections to professionals in diverse areas of wellness, a very assorted collection. I am happy to recommend some of them if you would allow me. We will figure it out, I am happy to work with your doctors, family, home attendants, chefs, personal trainers, acupuncturists, nutritionists and the rest of your team. Aging is not easy, the more people and systems that support you the better!
In the meantime, we need to keep you going physically and daily/weekly habits need to persevere with weekly/monthly exercise habits. I am taking a small group of "graduated" PT patients and making them "clients" for monthly maintenance. Enrolling in the Monthly Maintenance group will secure your 1 hour consultation initially in person if you are local and then virtually for 30 min weekly for the first month, then 2x/month for a total of 6 months. These are your exercise goals in real time, your problems, questions, issues. This is not physical therapy as much as it is camaraderie and teamwork. If you have a friend or partner along for the ride the better the outcome would be to have both of you working together.
For wellness and maintenance packages for NON PT clients, please contact me directly at evievlahakispt@gmail.com.