Description of Exercises [For prologue to this section of The Mom & Me Journals dot Net, click here.]
As of 9/04/04:
As of 9/04/04:
- In Side Lift [ISL]: Standing, with weights; Holding arms at sides, weights parallel to floor, lift weights up along sides as high as possible while holding elbows as close to body as possible; lower weights to starting position.
- Kick It [KI]: Sitting, independent alternate leg reps; start with foot flat on floor, kick to touch trainer's hand with toes, return foot flat to floor.
- Lift Up [LU]: Standing, with weights; Holding weights above shoulders, elbows out to sides, weights parallel to floor, extend arms completely above head, return to starting position.
- Knee It [KNI]: Sitting, independent alternate leg reps; start with foot flat on floor, raise knee up to touch trainer's hand, return foot flat to floor.
- Forward Out 1 [FO1]: Standing, with weights; Holding weights to upper chest perpendicular to ground, elbows close to sides, extend arms straight out, return to starting position.
- Separate Demitoe Sitting [SDS]: Sitting, independent alternate leg reps; start with foot flat on floor, raise heel until foot is resting on ball and toes, return to starting position.
- Forward Out 2 [FO2]: Standing, with weights; Holding weights to upper chest parallel to ground, elbows perpendicular to body, extend arms straight out, return to starting position.
- Together Demitoe Sitting [TDS]: Sitting, both feet reps together; start with feet flat on floor, raise heels until feet are resting on balls and toes, return to starting position.
- Forward 2 Side [F2S]: Standing, with weights; Holding weights straight out in front at shoulder height perpendicular to ground, open arms out until they are perpendicular to front of body, return to starting position.
- Side Step Sitting [SSS]: Sitting, independent alternate leg reps; start with foot flat on floor, step smartly to side and back, lifting knee up and down with thigh action.
- Arm Circles [AC]: Sitting, with weights; Holding weights straight out to sides at shoulder height perpendicular to ground, circle arms forward for prescribed reps, then backward.
- Marching In Place [MIP]: Standing, holding on to back of chair with both hands for support; march in place smartly, lifting knees high. On 9/6/04, changed exercise so that she stands between two chair backs facing forward and supports self on either side.
- Forward Curls [FC]: Standing, with weights; Holding weights parallel to ground, arms close to sides, bend arm at elbow and raise weights to shoulders, keeping elbows close to sides.
- Separate Demitoe Standing [SDST]: Standing, holding on to back of chair with both hands for support, independent alternate leg reps; with foot flat on floor lift heel until foot is resting on ball and toes, lower foot flat to floor.
- Independent Arm Circles Right [IACR]: Standing perpendicular to chair back holding onto chair with left hand, without weights; with right arm hanging down at side, circle arm from shoulder and upper arm, forearm hanging loose and elbow slightly bent, around across body and face, up, then out to side and down.
- Together Demitoe Standing [TDST]: Standing, holding on to back of chair with both hands, both feet reps together; start with feet flat on floor, raise heels until feet are resting on balls and toes, return to starting position.
- Independent Arm Circles Left [IACL]: Standing perpendicular to chair back holding onto chair with right hand, without weights; with left arm hanging down at side, circle arm from shoulder and upper arm, forearm hanging loose and elbow slightly bent, around across body and face, up, then out to side and down.
- Side to Side [STS]: Standing, hands on hips, without weights; begin facing forward, twist torso to left, then to right, as far as you can go.
- Side Step Standing [SSST]: Standing, holding on to back of chair with both hands for support, independent alternate leg reps; start with foot flat on floor, step smartly to side and back, lifting knee up and down with thigh action.
- Back Drop [BD]: Standing or sitting, independent alternate arm reps, with weights; Turning arm out so palm faces away from body, grip top of weight between thumb and forefinger, lift a arm straight above head so weight is parallel to ground, keeping upper arm straight, bend elbow and lower weight behind head and neck and lift to starting position.
- Not So Grand Plie [NSGP]: Standing supporting self with arms between two chair backs, toes turned outward, feet about shoulder's length apart, bend just a touch at the knees, keeping back straight and buttocks held in, then rise.
- Standing Up/Sitting Down [SUSD]: That's right, standing up and sitting down, with coaching and support. Not surprisingly, she is currently having difficulty standing up and sitting down, so I decided we should practice this. She scoots to the edge of the chair, readies her muscles, braces herself with her hands on my very steady arms, I coach her to "lean forward from the hips" and she stands up, then sits down, while I coach her to "sit with control, don't plop yourself in the chair."
- Belly Grip [BG]: This is simply tightening the abdominal muscles, holding for a count of five and relaxing for a count of five. Performed standing up. It occurred to me that this might help strengthen her lower back and help her body "remember" how to stand correctly when using her walker so that she stands closer to it and pushes it with the momentum of her legs instead of with her arms.
Saturday, September 18, 2004
No, we haven't done her exercises, today...
...yet, but I wanted to talk a bit about the walkering Mom did today. I was really impressed.
We had to make a trip to Costco, today, running out of supplies, again (we simply don't have the room to store back-ups). Normally, Mom is not enthusiastic about going to Costco, but she was this morning. I think it was simply that she was enthusiastic to move. Preparation for the shopping trip took so little time and was so "painless" (for me), that I actually don't remember anything about getting Mom ready.
I decided that I was not going to bother her about her walkering style, not even a little. I broke that vow to myself only twice, and both times it was a good idea. The first time, she got herself into a jam with a couple of carts and was determined to plow the walker through the jam. The second time, she was trying to walker as she reached for a sample and the walker got away from her because she was moving so far behind it. Although she still tends to walker too far back and hunch over the machine, she's getting much better: Part of the reason is that she's gaining confidence with it; the other part is that when we're out and about it's easy for her to keep her head up and her eyes forward, which tends to straighten her out.
As usual, all the supplies we needed were at each of three corners of the store and the fourth corner was loaded with Christmas supplies and gifts, so Mom insisted on wandering through there on her own while I collected salad greens and blueberries. I was delighted that Mom was walkering so much on her own, taking off, not bothering to check to see where I was (since she knows I'm always keeping my eye on her).
Throughout the entire time in the store she never once sat on her walker, complained of back pain (although I asked her a couple of times if her back was bothering her), nor did she pant or, for that matter slow down. This is important because, once again, today, I forgot to pack oxygen in the car and didn't realize it until we'd made our way through about a third of the store and were standing in front of the flower bin trying to decide whether to buy some today or wait until after our trip to Mesa, tomorrow. A man with an oxygen tank slung over his shoulder angled beside us to admire the flowers. I thought, "Good, she'll see someone else with oxygen," turned to see if she was noticing the man, then realized she didn't have her oxygen with her. "Mom," I said, "are you short of breath or winded?"
"No, why?"
"I haven't noticed you panting, either."
"No. I'm fine." She sounded almost indignant.
"Well, guess what, I forgot your oxygen, again, and you seem to be perfectly fine without it."
She gave me that look, the one where I realize she trusts her short term memory loss more than she trusts me, and said, "Well, of course I'm fine without it!"
Okay. Not a problem. Literally.
On the way home I continued to marvel, silently, about how simply quitting smoking had completely turned Mom's declining energy and health around. I remembered, some months ago, when her FT asked her if she was ever going to quit smoking. Mom didn't answer, just smiled, and the FT laughed and said, "Not in this lifetime!"
That's what I thought, back then, too. How people can surprise us. Granted, if she'd had a choice she wouldn't have quit, and, granted, as well, if her memory was better her quitting wouldn't be a success, it would simply have been a minor annoyance that she'd had to quit at both the hospital and SNF and she would have continued immediately upon leaving both facilities.
Lately, I've been wondering if all of these wonderful things that are happening for and to her, now, would have been happening sooner if she'd lived in one of my other sister's homes where they would not have allowed her to smoke. Maybe. Maybe a lot of things that have happened over the past 4 years in regards to periods of failing health would never have happened if she'd been with someone else in our family. I know better than to question the past, but, it's hard not to spend a little time in reflection. Of course, I came up with no conclusions except that, well, we'll never know.
I just hope that the best I can do for my mother is the best she can receive. I let her smoke as long as I could because I believed that I would have been denying a part of her intrinsic character if I tyrannically made her quit. A time came, though, when it became clear that, from a health point of view, not giving her a chance to work with that intrinsic part of her character and change one detail upon which it hung was tantamount to allowing another intrinsic part of her character, the part that allows her to believe that "everything will be fine, nothing needs to change, this is not hurting me", to take over and run her right into the ground, literally. I hope I made the right choice when I continued to allow her to smoke. The evidence seems to be indicating that I certainly made the right choice when her back-to-back stays in the medical facilities pretty much took away her smoking habit and I decided to make sure it wasn't reinstated.
And, today, my mother took off and did Costco, walkering only a few feet behind the champs and without oxygen. I can't wait for our future to unwind before us as we walk into it. Together.
We had to make a trip to Costco, today, running out of supplies, again (we simply don't have the room to store back-ups). Normally, Mom is not enthusiastic about going to Costco, but she was this morning. I think it was simply that she was enthusiastic to move. Preparation for the shopping trip took so little time and was so "painless" (for me), that I actually don't remember anything about getting Mom ready.
I decided that I was not going to bother her about her walkering style, not even a little. I broke that vow to myself only twice, and both times it was a good idea. The first time, she got herself into a jam with a couple of carts and was determined to plow the walker through the jam. The second time, she was trying to walker as she reached for a sample and the walker got away from her because she was moving so far behind it. Although she still tends to walker too far back and hunch over the machine, she's getting much better: Part of the reason is that she's gaining confidence with it; the other part is that when we're out and about it's easy for her to keep her head up and her eyes forward, which tends to straighten her out.
As usual, all the supplies we needed were at each of three corners of the store and the fourth corner was loaded with Christmas supplies and gifts, so Mom insisted on wandering through there on her own while I collected salad greens and blueberries. I was delighted that Mom was walkering so much on her own, taking off, not bothering to check to see where I was (since she knows I'm always keeping my eye on her).
Throughout the entire time in the store she never once sat on her walker, complained of back pain (although I asked her a couple of times if her back was bothering her), nor did she pant or, for that matter slow down. This is important because, once again, today, I forgot to pack oxygen in the car and didn't realize it until we'd made our way through about a third of the store and were standing in front of the flower bin trying to decide whether to buy some today or wait until after our trip to Mesa, tomorrow. A man with an oxygen tank slung over his shoulder angled beside us to admire the flowers. I thought, "Good, she'll see someone else with oxygen," turned to see if she was noticing the man, then realized she didn't have her oxygen with her. "Mom," I said, "are you short of breath or winded?"
"No, why?"
"I haven't noticed you panting, either."
"No. I'm fine." She sounded almost indignant.
"Well, guess what, I forgot your oxygen, again, and you seem to be perfectly fine without it."
She gave me that look, the one where I realize she trusts her short term memory loss more than she trusts me, and said, "Well, of course I'm fine without it!"
Okay. Not a problem. Literally.
On the way home I continued to marvel, silently, about how simply quitting smoking had completely turned Mom's declining energy and health around. I remembered, some months ago, when her FT asked her if she was ever going to quit smoking. Mom didn't answer, just smiled, and the FT laughed and said, "Not in this lifetime!"
That's what I thought, back then, too. How people can surprise us. Granted, if she'd had a choice she wouldn't have quit, and, granted, as well, if her memory was better her quitting wouldn't be a success, it would simply have been a minor annoyance that she'd had to quit at both the hospital and SNF and she would have continued immediately upon leaving both facilities.
Lately, I've been wondering if all of these wonderful things that are happening for and to her, now, would have been happening sooner if she'd lived in one of my other sister's homes where they would not have allowed her to smoke. Maybe. Maybe a lot of things that have happened over the past 4 years in regards to periods of failing health would never have happened if she'd been with someone else in our family. I know better than to question the past, but, it's hard not to spend a little time in reflection. Of course, I came up with no conclusions except that, well, we'll never know.
I just hope that the best I can do for my mother is the best she can receive. I let her smoke as long as I could because I believed that I would have been denying a part of her intrinsic character if I tyrannically made her quit. A time came, though, when it became clear that, from a health point of view, not giving her a chance to work with that intrinsic part of her character and change one detail upon which it hung was tantamount to allowing another intrinsic part of her character, the part that allows her to believe that "everything will be fine, nothing needs to change, this is not hurting me", to take over and run her right into the ground, literally. I hope I made the right choice when I continued to allow her to smoke. The evidence seems to be indicating that I certainly made the right choice when her back-to-back stays in the medical facilities pretty much took away her smoking habit and I decided to make sure it wasn't reinstated.
And, today, my mother took off and did Costco, walkering only a few feet behind the champs and without oxygen. I can't wait for our future to unwind before us as we walk into it. Together.
