Chair-based exercise plan helps hospital patients

The sessions to music include exercising upper and lower limbs, playing catch with beach balls and throwing hoops on to a cone

A idea delivered in a Swedish care home to keep older people moving, has been adapted for Peterborough City Hospital patients.

The chair-based exercise programme aims to stop patients from losing muscle tone while being cared for in hospital.

Muscle tone lost from a few days in a hospital bed can take several months to regain in an older person and impact mobility upon leaving.

Teresa Stratton, a falls specialist nurse overseeing the sessions, said it been humbling to see "more frail patients becoming energised and involved".

By keeping moving, a patient’s deconditioning can be slowed down so they can they maintain their independence and have a shorter stay in hospital

The sessions were devised by the acute medicine therapy team after they saw the idea being delivered at a care home in Sweden.

Exercise sessions run twice a week on two pilot wards, but the hospital aims is to eventually include other wards where older patients are cared for.

Ms Stratton said: “It is wonderful to see this initiative having a positive impact on our patients.

“It has been humbling for me and the ward teams to see some of our more frail patients becoming energised and involved in these sessions.

"The feedback from patients and their families has been fantastic – it really brings the ward to life.”