The City of Auburn Hills Senior Services Department has been working alongside Oakland University Physical Therapy Program on a grant that will benefit the growing population of senior citizens within our city limits. Karen Adcock, Senior Services Director and Deb Colling, Health and Wellness Coordinator & Community Liaison have been assisting Dr. Sara Arena and Dr. Chris Wilson of Oakland University for the past year with a common goal to obtain a grant that will link senior citizens within the community with Physical Therapy to help with primary and secondary risk prevention in the home.

This grant titled, “Prevention Focused Home-Based Physical Therapy Utilizing Community Partnership Referrals”, will use the Community Center as a referral source to obtain five participants to receive six in home physical therapy visits. The purpose of this study is to develop, implement and evaluate the effectiveness of a primary/secondary prevention in a clinical model applicable to the practice of home health care physical therapy in partnership with a community referral partner. Current home care focuses on those who are already unable to leave the home safely. Dr. Arena and Dr. Wilson’s goal is to show that a relationship with community center will help in the prevention of senior citizens becoming homebound. With early intervention of preventative home-based therapy, the civic goal is to prevent falls and keep seniors safe in their home environments.

In addition to the preventive home-based therapy, participants will receive individual health and exercise programs, education related to health improvement, and wellness program coaching. The benefits for each participant is to help improve health, confidence, become less at risk of hospitalization and disease. All of this will put less demand on the current healthcare system and advanced senior care facilities.

In order to qualify, participants must not have any serious recent medical history or received recent physical therapy. If you would like any information please contact:

Karen Adcock: (248) 370-9353, kadcock@auburnhills.org

Deb Colling: (248) 370-9353, dcolling@auburnhills.org

Dr. Sara Arena: (248) 364-8682, arena@oakland.edu