Dear Therapists,
My mother has been having a very difficult time getting up from her couch. Every time she tries to get up she falls back onto the couch. Each time she wants to get up we need to help her. Is there anything she/we can do to make it easier?
A Concerned Daughter
To answer your question it would be helpful to first describe what steps go into standing up from a sitting position, and then provide some suggestions to make it easier. Standing up from a chair is a much more complex task than most people realize. Before attempting to get up, keep in mind that the person requires enough strength in their hands and arms to push their weight up from a seated position. Another important concept to understand is the center-of-gravity. This is the point on your body which represents the center of your mass. If this point moves forward, you will start to tilt forward. If your center of gravity moves backwards you will begin to tilt backwards.
Let’s apply this concept to standing from a chair. For the purposes of this article the center of gravity is approximately in the midsection (bellybutton area). As we said before, your body will tilt in the direction of your center of gravity. Therefore, when you want to stand from a chair it is very helpful to lean forward. This brings your center-of-gravity over your feet. Now, you just lift yourself up with your legs until you are standing. If your center of gravity is behind your feet, you will keep falling back into the chair when your try to stand up.
Now that you understand the center-of-gravity concept and how it applies to standing up from a chair, we can extrapolate to standing from a couch. When you sit on the couch you are very low. This often places your hips in a lower position than your knees, making your center-of-gravity very low. From this position it is basically impossible to stand unless you scoot to the front of the couch and lean forward to the point that your center of gravity is over your feet.
Some things you can try, to make it easier for your mother to stand from the couch are:
• Make the couch higher by putting a pillow where she wants to sit
• Make sure she is sitting on the side (not the middle seat)
• Place pillows behind her to make sure she is close to the front
• Make sure she leans all the way forward before trying to stand up
Other options are a power recliner or a power seat assist that can be placed on a couch. These options function to assist you to stand by placing you in a more upright position (bringing your center of gravity up and forward).
If your mother continues to have difficulty standing from a couch it would be helpful for her to be seen by a physical or occupational therapist who can teach her the proper technique for standing, as well as exercises to strengthen her muscles, to help facilitate reaching her goal of standing up from the couch.
Please send any questions or topics that you would like to be discussed in our future columns to Rehab@fwdtherapy.com
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Robin (Rivky) Akselrud, MS,OTR/L is a Licensed Occupational Therapist, and David (Yakov) Ettinger, PT, DPT is a Doctor of Physical Therapy. Their state-of-the-art outpatient treatment facility for adult and pediatric rehabilitation, Forward Physical and Occupational Therapy is NOW OPEN at 3815 13th Avenue. Please contact us at (718)-677-6777 to schedule an appointment, so we can help YOU move FORWARD!
