Physiotherapy for our poor grandparents

A little anecdote about my memories of my grandparents and how much our mothers, now grandparents, do for our baby. We should be thankful and give back to our grandparents.

I remember going down to an Adelaide beach side country town called Goolwa, on a Friday night, for a weekend with our grandparents. I can’t remember how regularly we went but I remember it so fondly. My sister and I got picked up directly from school and put in to the tray of the ute (OH&S in the 80s!), rugged up so we were warm and off we went!

Highlights of the weekend would be picking carrots with Grandpa from his vegetable patch, feeding the magpies bacon and generally getting spoilt with some form of sugar, an absolute rarity for us.

It is surprising anyone came to our birthday parties because the ‘sweets’ consisted of dried fruit balls and a lemon cake oozing with lemon and very little sugar. You would think I would still be having counselling for this, but no, I have a debt of gratitude to my Mum for instilling good eating habits in us and to our Grandparents for treating us.

Anyway, I bumped in to this old school Mum today and she commented how much she was looking after her grandchildren and thanked physiotherapy for keeping her able to run after the children. I drove home thinking of my mothers (Mum and MIL) and how much they do for our daughter and nieces and nephews. They work tirelessly to help us manage our busy lives. To my mums; thank you 1000 times. They remain really strong with regular exercise. They make me look bad. So they are managing really well but for most of our parents, they probably need back mobilising, strengthening exercises or at least a massage to loosen those tight muscles or destress!

“Post menopause (like when you are breast feeding) oestrogen decreases which can lead to an increase in stress incontinence...”

Another issue that grandmothers can suffer from is an increase in incontinence. Not only could they already have issues from delivering you all those years ago, but post menopause, oestrogen decreases which can lead to an increase in stress incontinence. This decreased oestrogen and increased risk of incontinence happens when you are breast feeding too! The incontinence occurs because the walls of the urethra (where urine exits the body from the bladder) thin, decrease vascularisation and surface tension so the urethral pressure, that halts urination, decreases.  As Women's Health Physiotherapists we can assess and treat incontinence if required. 

If you feel your Mum or Dad need a thank you with some physiotherapy then give your physiotherapist a call.

Summary

Grandparents are amazing. They help us parents out so much and give the grand children so much joy.

Treat their aging and aching muscles and joints with some physiotherapy.

Melli Tilbrook is a Physiotherapist based at Adelaide Physiotherapy and Pilates Studio, Beulah Park.