♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Howdy folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- We are the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course Bob.
- Today we're gonna talk about top three gifts
for someone in a nursing home.
Brad and I actually have a lot of experience with this,
not that we live in nursing homes,
but we have worked with a lot of residents
who are in skilled nursing facilities as they're
known professionally. - Right, right.
- And having worked with people like this for years,
we kinda see which things are really important
to these people.
- Right.
- You know, as time goes on.
- Some people think that means it's an elderly thing or not,
but it's oftentimes, not often,
there's plenty of times when there's people
in their 20s, 30s, 40s from injuries;
spinal cord injuries et cetera,
that are in the same boat and can use
some of these things just as well.
- Right.
All right, in case you're new to our channel,
please take a second to subscribe to us.
We provide videos on how to stay healthy, fit, pain-free
and we upload every day.
Also, we're always giving something away.
What it is right now, we don't know.
- We don't know. - 'Cause it's a future video.
- But it'll be something.
- Yeah, go to bobandbrad.com on the lower part there,
and go to the giveaway section
and we'll be telling what we're giving away.
Or go to Facebook BobandBrad,
'cause we'll usually have it pinned to the top of the page.
- Right. - So.
- There you go, let's go to work, Bob.
- All right, number one;
and this is if a person is, what we'd say,
ambulatory or not ambulatory.
Get 'em a good, comfortable chair.
There's a lot of sitting that goes on
in a nursing home, generally;
and they're in their room,
the rooms a lot of times aren't that big.
- Right.
- And you really wanna have a comfortable chair.
If the person can ambulate, get them--
- Or walk, some people - Walk.
- aren't familiar with that term.
- You wanna get probably one of those recliners
that is adjustable.
- Right.
- You went through this, Brad.
- Right, we purchased one for both my father and my mother,
and there's a lot of variety of to 'em.
I would say don't get a cheap one.
You don't have to get the most expensive,
I don't think you need the ones that
they heat up and they vibrate and all of that,
that's, - Right, right.
- you know, that may
or may not. - That's just something else
that can go wrong.
- Right.
But a good, solid one that's built well.
The one we did buy, it wasn't built well
and we actually had to take it back within a week,
because the mechanics were falling apart.
So we learned our lesson, you know,
you get to spend, - Spend a little more.
- Yeah, between a 1,000, 1,500 dollars
you can pretty much plan that for sure.
But make sure it's firm,
don't get one get one that's all soft and mushy one.
- People think that it's more comfortable
to go into that soft, sinky.
- Right.
- It's actually, generally,
not more comfortable. - No, no.
- People like the firmness of it.
- It promotes good posture
and it keeps people aligned and where they should be, so.
That's, and it elevates and can get their feet up.
- Yeah, and they can easily adjust it
with electric controls.
- Right. - Electronic controls.
- Something that handles,
if they got all that other stuff on there,
there's way too many buttons.
- Sure.
- For me, I like a up and a down,
- Yeah. - and that's it.
- Yeah, that's exactly right. - If you got the one
with the heat and the vibration and all that,
it can be confusing sometimes.
- Sure.
Going into this further,
now let's say the person is not, doesn't walk,
and they are in a wheelchair;
that's where it is vitally important
that you get them a good wheelchair.
Now, Brad and I have had this discussion
and people are gonna say,
"Well, why don't we just use the chair
"that the nursing home provides?"
- Right.
- And you can, but you have to understand nursing homes
do not have money,
they're all just barely getting by.
- And we're talking,
we're in 2019 in the United States.
That's the situation, - Right.
- and that's the way it is.
- Yeah, and so they're not gonna be in a good chair.
It more likely is not gonna be comfortable.
Again, if you want to buy your loved one a nice gift,
I would get them a good chair.
If you think about how much time they spend in that,
and if you tried to sit in a chair that long,
you'd be shocked how uncomfortable it is.
- It's just like going for a long car ride
in a car that's not comfortable.
- Right.
- You know, four, - Or a plane ride.
- after three, four hours,
and you're like, "oh man, I am not happy at all."
Same situation if it's not a good chair.
- That person may not be able to adjust themselves
to get more comfortable,
or they may not be able to get up out of it
just to give themselves some relief.
This is a Broda chair.
Broda does really great, I'd say, positioning chairs,
wouldn't you say, Brad?
You can use it to wheel around,
but it just works out really well
for people who need maybe even some advanced
positioning issues.
- Right.
- [Bob] So like, for example,
this came with the head rest here.
- Right.
- [Bob] Which is an attachment.
It's got some of the lateral supports here.
- These are Velcro so they can adjust to anybody's body.
This goes up and down and adjusts very easily.
Can you do the tilt back?
- [Bob] Sure, so this is the,
I'm going to first tell them what the name is,
- Oh, sure. - This is the
Encore Pedal Rocker, a very nice chair.
This is a high-end chair.
So it can go up and down like this,
as far as adjustments, as far as the back height
or back inclination.
But it also has this component,
which you lock to rock.
So I went ahead and helped Brad,
you can show how this is really nice
for someone who likes the rocking chair aspect,
and it's also good for a person if they're agitated,
maybe from some Dementia or whatever.
I've seen this work well quite often,
it just seems to calm them down a bit.
- Right, it does.
It is built well, this is not going to fall apart,
it's going to take years. - Yeah, this is a
fine, fine chair.
We did a video on this, actually called it
the Cadillac of wheelchairs,
because there's nothing cheap on any work on this
and it's got multiple adjustments so it's gonna fit you.
- Right, yeah.
If you buy it for a loved one
they're gonna have it for years.
- Yeah, so check out Broda, B-R-O-D-A.
It was so nice of them to give it to us,
we're gonna actually donate it
to a favorite patient of ours.
- Sure.
- So.
Number three, number two, so we're down to number two.
Again, going with the sitting issue;
let's say maybe you can't even afford a chair.
It's really good to get a good cushion,
a good seated cushion.
- Right.
So, you know,
a lot better than their pillow,
you wanna have a cushion.
But there's some cushions,
cheap cushions that are actuality, I think,
- Worse than a-- - worse than a pillow.
If you're gonna spend 30 or 40 dollars,
it's probably not gonna be
- No. - worth much.
- You wanna get a nice one.
And a lot of times I even talk about,
there's one type of cushion that'll have
a dense foam as a base and then has a softer foam on top.
And that allows you to sink in and be comfortable,
but you don't sink in so much
that your butt bones go right down
to the bottom of the chair.
- Right, so you don't bottom out if you will;
and often times that top layer's a memory foam.
- Right. - And that really is,
memory foam has been a wonderful thing for cushioning,
for things like this.
- Again, as a rule of thumb,
you're probably gonna spend a little bit more
and you definitely wanna make sure it doesn't bottom out.
If you're having skin breakdown,
you're probably gonna even go to something like this,
which is the Roho cushion, R-O-H-O.
- Right.
- And this is a low profile one,
meaning that it's not as high.
They have ones that are almost double this.
- Right.
- And they have these individual air cells
and they're very comfortable.
You can fill them up to the amount of air that you need.
- Right, they tell you how to adjust them,
there's a pump that comes with them,
and you do need to adjust them properly
or you won't get the benefits.
- These have been around for 30 years,
wouldn't you say, Brad?
- Well, as long as I've been in therapy over 23 years
and you've been here what, three, 400 hundred years?
- Yeah, three or 4,000 years and the thing is,
it is the best cushion without a doubt for skin breakdown.
- And actually, a top-end Roho I think goes
for around four or 500 dollars.
But now they make some middle of the line Rohos.
You can get them better,
I think they're maybe a 100, 150?
I'm not sure, you'd have to look it up.
- Yeah, you have to look it up
'cause I thought that was the case too
and every time I kept looking up
they were back up to 400, so.
- If you do have skin breakdown on your bottom side,
that really makes life miserable and then it's
really expensive. - Well, it's dangerous also
because you can get sepsis and you can die, I mean.
So, they are nothing to mess around with, skin breakdown.
- Right. - So.
So number three, Brad,
this is the one that everyone can do,
because it's inexpensive, and that is a visit.
That's the best gift you can give someone
in a nursing home, and if possible,
I'd also take them out of the facility.
- Sure.
- Take them outside for a car ride,
or take them to a restaurant.
Just figure out a way to do it,
because if you can't imagine yourself
being in one place all the time, yeah,
I would go a little stirry crazy.
I see the look on residents' faces
when they come by, they say,
"Yeah, my son or my nephew came by this weekend
"and took me out for a car ride."
- Right.
- And how much they enjoyed it.
Really nice to take them back
to maybe their town where they grew up,
- Sure. - or, you know,
their farm if they came from a farm.
- Obviously, assuming if their health
and they're strong enough. - Yeah, if they're strong
enough to do this, right. - Right.
As a matter of fact,
I saw a patient and the sole reason I spent an hour
with him and his brother was to show him
how to get in and out of the car safely.
They had to use a slide board transfer
and we went through it.
And so, it works out well.
- And if you can't, just the visit is plenty enough
for many people. - Sometimes, just take
the wheelchair and push them outside,
get some fresh air. - Yeah, that's exactly right.
That's what lot of people do too, so.
And if you're in Minnesota and it's
in the middle of winter,
I probably would avoid that one, though, too.
- Yeah, just watch a movie.
(laughing)
- All right, hope that helps,
and take care of those people, our loved ones.
- That's right.
(short electro beat)