Back Pain & The Way Caregivers Use Their Back To Lift

It is not a surprise that as you age you may need more care than you can provide on a daily basis for yourself.

Often these needs are filled by a relative, such as an adult daughter or son or the healthier spouse. These spouses and children often provide care for the aging adult who because of age or injury or even perhaps both is not as flexible and mobile as they used to be.

Aging adults often need to be lifted or physically moved as part of their care. These family caregivers, who typically have zero medical training in the best ways to move the patient, end up sustaining injuries from moving the person wrong.

Often times the patient themselves end up injured because of lack of proper caregiver training. Oftentimes the injuries sustained by the caregivers are back injuries.

Medical conditions such as a stroke, paralysis, Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease and many others medical conditions result in adult patients who need to be lifted out of bed and either into a wheelchair or a chair. Their condition may also require that they need to be bathed, fed and clothed. With this kind of daily work, it is often the caregiver, and yes, even sometimes the professional caregivers, who end up with back pain because of the work they are doing to care for their patient.

What can be done to ease this challenge? It really is quite simple. The caregiver must learn how best to lift their patient. Not only is this important for the health and well being of the caregiver but also for the patient too. Think about in this way… if you get injured then who is going to take care of the patient? If you are a professional caregiver, if you sustain a back injury while taking care of a patient then you may not be able to work resulting in a loss of income.

There are some basic things you can do to help prevent back injury when serving as a caregiver. To start with, do not lean over too much. It is a much better idea to sit down beside a patient and speak with them instead of just leaning over to do so which causes back strain and injury. Remember to lift with your legs and not your back. Learn to lift properly and then do it right each and every time. No cheating.

A common caregiver movement is when you are assisting a patient from a bed and into a wheelchair.

Keep you feet flat on the floor, at shoulder length apart. If you must bend in order to best assist the patient, then bend at the knees and not at your back.

Help the patient to place their feet on the floor and then help them to move closer to you and stand as much as they are able.

Then turn with them towards the chair.

Move as one. Lean down with the patient to help place them into the wheelchair. Be sure the wheelchair wheels are locked. Be certain the patient is holding onto the chair with both hands, taking some of the weight, before you lower them into the wheelchair.

Remember to avoid twisting. With some of these tips it should be much easier to safely transfer patients and avoid personal caregiver injury.

Caregivers take care of others but at the same time they must also take care of themselves in order to be able to be a caregiver for a long time to come.