Therapy pool, wellness center help seniors stay active

Maintaining roads and bridges in Baxter County, Arkansas, can do a number on your knees. Painfully, Bob Nault knows this all too well.

“You’re constantly on them. You’re laying hot mix and concrete and all that kind of stuff,” Bob says.

It’s why the 61-year-old is currently rehabbing at Good Samaritan Society – Mountain Home. While secluded on 27 acres in the heart of the Ozarks, the location provides a variety of inpatient and outpatient services including physical, speech and occupational therapy.

“I’ve been going to physical therapy here now for about four years. I had both knees done and it was recommended by a doctor I went to see. It’s a wonderful place to come and do your physical therapy,” Bob says.

'No. 1 facility'

The Heinz-Willett Center for Well-Being on campus houses a number of great amenities. Bob’s favorite activity is Hydroworx aquatic therapy in the location's warm-water pool. Two cameras can record different angles of a patient’s gait while using the pool’s underwater treadmill.

“You don’t normally get that precise look at someone’s walk until you can get in that pool and really see what they’re doing,” Amanda Worsham, a Society licensed PT assistant, says.

“I’ve been doing this for 22 years now and this has been the No. 1 facility that I have ever had the pleasure to work at. Between having the warm therapy pool with the treadmill in it and the HUR equipment and the ability for my patients to continue to strengthen and get better is an absolute amazing idea that I just fell in love with.”

HUR therapy equipment features smart technology meant to encourage high levels of participation.

“User-friendly equipment,” is how Bethany Clark, Society wellness director, describes it. “We program each person with a bracelet. All you have to do is go up to a machine and scan it. It remembers you, it adjusts to you and it remembers the weight you’ve been using.”

Couples join workouts

Since the therapy gym is open to the public, Bob has been recruiting other members of the community to work out at the Society.

“I even got my wife in here. She comes in and uses the gym for a membership. It’s really fantastic," Bob says.With recovery going smoothly, his therapy will eventually come to a close but his relationship with the team at Mountain Home can continue.

“We offer you three months of an all-inclusive membership for free (after therapy is over). We do that as a benefit to keep people healthy. It keeps people using our building and doing what the therapist taught you,” Bethany says.

Making healthy progress so patients and Society residents nearby can get back to doing what they love most.

“I’m allowed to be one-on-one with my patient their whole visit," Amanda says about work with Bob and others. "That makes a world of difference. Not only to them but to me as well. Gives me more of a chance to really focus in on the little things that are going to make a difference for them."

Bethany adds, “that’s the best part about working here is when people come back and you see the improvements and all the joy that people have."