Health promotion of physical disabled elderly people

Abstract

Population aging is a global problem. When people getting older, the physical function is declining. In current China, physical disabled people over 65 account for half of the whole disabled population. More and more elderly people are facing disability. However, the proportion of treatment and recovery is quite low because nurses lack systematic and effective methods to care and help patient and their families. This research aimed to find out health promotion methods to improve the living quality for physically disabled elderly people. The purpose was helping nurses to provide the knowledge and skills to physical disabled elderly people, helping their families to promote physical disabled elderly people's health and improve their living quality. The research was implemented as a literature review. The data was searched using the following two databases: CINAHL (EBSCO) and PubMed. Overall, six articles were chosen to be reviewed. Content analysis was applied in the analysis of the data. Two main categories were summarized: support for the elderly and their family caregivers, exercise and physical support. Result showed that nurses can help physically disabled elderly people to improve their quality of life through these ways. Nurses can choose the methods depend on the environment and patients’ condition.