Snow the therapy dog was just as excited as the two patients who accompanied her for a walk through the halls on Thursday at Longs Peak Hospital.
The white collie accompanied Jim Darby and Michael Walker as part of the Every BODY Moves campaign on Thursday. The two UCHealth patients, with Snow at their side, helped their ward to tally up distances in a competition with the other wards in the hospital.
The grassroots effort is meant to encourage patients to get up and move, and Snow was one of many ways to motivate patients. Walker made it all the way around the corner from his hospital room for the first time, while Darby completed a speedy lap around the ward.
“We know that promoting in-hospital mobility reduces all the negative effects of laying in bed and it can lead to increasing muscle strength, balance and endurance in our patients,” said Michelle Borgwardt, rehab supervisor.
Promoting mobility can help patients go home faster, instead of having to go to a rehabilitation facility, reducing their length of stay and preventing readmissions.
“We say for every one day you lay in bed, you lose about three days of strength, because our muscles get weaker a lot quicker than they get stronger,” Borgwardt said.
She explained that the hospital works to make the mobilization part of a patient’s plan of care and explains reasons to move even if the patient might not feel up to it. Moving can help with pain management and encourages socialization as well.
“You get to see the dogs, you can see more people out in the hallway,” Borgwardt said. “I think it does help with morale.”
Regardless of a patient’s capabilities, the health care teams at UCHealth try to meet them where they’re at and encourage meeting their health goals, whatever that might be.
“We know that not all patients can get up and walk, but they have a mobility goal every day and our goal is to reach that three times a day, whether it’s sit at the side of the bed, get up to the chair, walk to the bathroom, things like that,” Borgwardt said.
While the initiative is just for the week, all members of the health care team are getting involved and working to make movement a part of every patient's daily care plan.
“It helps with the overall patient experience, which is what we’re all about here at UCHealth, and just making sure that patients recover as quick as possible and as safe as possible, and that we get them home to their loved ones as quick as we can,” Borgwardt said.
