Marianne struggled to tie her shoe for the fifth time but her fingers just would not work together like they had for all of those years. How embarrassing, to be 71 years old and can’t tie your own shoe she thought. Since her stroke, even the easiest task had been such a chore to relearn. “I can’t” she said and sat back in disgust. “But you can”, said her therapist Pam, “just try one more time.” This scenario goes on daily in this country and in the future will very likely become an even more common occurrence.

 Today, the Baby Boomers of our country make up almost one quarter of the population of the United States. The “Baby Boomer” demographic is the name given to the group of people born out of a massive rise in birth rates that occurred post-World War II up until 1964. This generation, born between the years 1946 and 1964, are currently huge drivers of the economy and the health care system in the United States. Because they take up a large portion of our nation, they have had and will continue to have a significant impact on society and the way that our country works. Boomers were preceded by the World War II Generation. Members of the WWII Generation have lived longer than any generation in the history of the United States and are passing away and aging rapidly. Those still surviving are well into their 80’s and 90’s. Some members of both World War II and Baby Boomer groups have benefited greatly from advances in medical care and nutrition to live longer than ever before and to remain active later in life. However, many members of both groups have given in to the availability and ease of a diet based on low nutrition fast food, which coupled with a sedentary lifestyle and jobs with no physical demands, may lead to poor health and physical challenges in everyday life as they age. Boomers are now in their mid-50’s and early 70’s but Boomers don’t see 70’s as old age like those who came before them. Seventy is the new sixty and sixty is the new 50 and so on… Boomers have access to better nutrition which some take advantage of and some do not. Also, Boomers have almost limitless recreational options and medical procedures that few other generations could take advantage of as their bodies naturally age and they struggle to maintain good health and activity levels. Regardless of the cause, be it a sports or recreational injury, recovery from a stroke, or the rehabilitation associated with a knee or hip replacement surgery, Boomers are going to need physical therapists to help them recover and move forward with their lives.  

As a result of natural aging, many of these baby boomers will develop health problems. They will eventually have difficulty completing simple tasks by themselves and need help recovering from injury such as a fall or one of many surgeries. Some of these surgeries are elective and some are required simply to stay alive. The increase in overall cost and pressures placed on hospitals and other healthcare systems by Boomers has tremendously effected the healthcare system. As the Boomer population is continuing to age, the demand for trained health professionals is continuing to grow. The job of a physical therapist and specifically a geriatric physical therapist, is to help patients maintain or achieve their desired level of physical health by performing exercises and activities that help older patients reach their highest level of physical fitness. In my personal experience, my 87-year-old Grandmother slipped and fell on the front porch of her house and broke her femur. She had to be taken to the hospital and they eventually performed surgery. During her surgery, they inserted a metal rod in her leg in place of the broken bone. After recovering in the hospital for a week, she had to be transported to a rehabilitation center. She spent the next month in this center going through daily rehabilitation to regain her strength and mobility. When she entered, she had trouble performing simple tasks required for everyday living. However, when she left 30 days later, she was able to stand again and her outlook on her recovery was greatly improved. She required additional home therapy to be strong enough to walk again and I am happy to say that after almost a year she is completely healed. There are countless stories like the one I just told and there is no question that the aging Baby Boomer population in America will continue to contribute to a rise in the demand for physical therapy in the immediate future.

All Americans between the ages of 53 and 71 are considered to be Baby Boomers. They include 81,462,074 of the entire United States population as of March 2017. Because they make up such a significant amount of the U.S. population, their health status has great impact on the American health care system. The prevalence of chronic diseases with Baby Boomers requires more medical services and technologies. (When I’m 64…). Although the chances of developing chronic health problems does increase with age, usually the initial cause of these health issues begins much earlier in life.  If a person is to look at the current health status of people ages 50 to 64 and compare them to the same ages of people in 1999, (Kodjak) there is an eye opening difference in the amount of people who have diabetes and are considered to be obese. The most important reason is because many Baby Boomers live a rather sedentary lifestyle and have poor nutrition habits. An article written by Healthline discusses the reasoning for the sedentary lifestyle changes that have occurred within many American jobs. One of the most important being that “…many jobs require sedentary work, longer commuting, more television watching, etc.” (Jeste). The development of technology and better transportation has made life easier for the Baby Boomer generation and in turn made them lazier. This revealed that the health problems coming from a sedentary lifestyle have occurred because of lack of physical activity and are likely preventable. 

The lack of proper nutrition plays an important role in why some of this generation are so unhealthy. The obesity epidemic has been a problem in our country for a large amount of time and the baby boomers can easily be seen as the one of the primary groups to suffer. Obesity has taken a major toll on the baby boomers and caused a variety of health problems such as heart disease, stroke and general mobility issues. As the Boomer generation grew older, nutrition and frequent physical activity were not discussed frequently enough or stressed enough within public discussions as it is today. This unhealthy lifestyle will begin to be a bigger problem as more elderly people begin to get admitted into a hospital to receive special treatment or medication for avoidable ailments created by poor nutrition and lack of physical activity. In an online video, a healthcare expert Bob Overholt states that “older America needs to take the right precautions in order to help future generations not have to deal with such a burden”. The predicted downward spiral in good health and the requirement for more healthcare is mostly because of the poor health of the baby boomer population. With the right precautions and lifestyle changes, Boomers and older people can decrease their health risk and also help out future generations. 

There are several other factors that give reason for the dramatic spike in physical therapy demand. Baby Boomers have longer life spans now, and living longer increases the risk of mobility-related injuries and chronic disease (Lyons). The career of a physical therapist will help to address these specific conditions and work to help patients recover and return to their normal lifestyle. Just as knee replacements were not commonplace a few years ago, it is reasonable to expect that there will be elective surgeries discovered in the coming years that will be available to Boomers as to no generation before. More surgery equals more therapy which will continue to drive the need for health care professionals on all levels.   

The high demand for careers in physical therapy for the younger generations is due to the fact that the largest population in the country is definitely going to be elderly and many are likely to be in need of their services. When students are pursuing a specific career, an important factor to consider is the job outlook. Job outlook is a forecast of the change in growth in a particular occupation over a set period of time. Geriatric physical therapy has always been a specialized field in high demand because elderly patients tend to heal more slowly than younger patients and also need more tailored exercises to meet their aging body’s specific needs. 

Aging is a fundamental process that affects all parts of the human body. The severity of change may differ from person to person, but total body decline is an unavoidable part of life for everyone (Guccione). This is important today because the baby boomers are the largest aging population in the United States. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has proven there to be an increasing number of physical therapist positions available over the next ten years. As they state in their annual report, “Employment of physical therapists is projected to grow 34 percent from 2014 to 2024, much faster than the average for all occupations.” The demand for physical therapists will also increase due to Baby Boomers staying active later in life. The older generation is also more likely to experience sudden illnesses such as strokes and heart attacks that effect mobility in which require physical therapy for rehabilitation. As stated previously, the ‘boomer’ generation will likely have health problems that stem from poor nutrition and physical inactivity. “In addition, physical therapists will be needed to treat people with mobility issues stemming from chronic conditions, such as diabetes or obesity” (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Physical therapy will be required as the baby boomers age, but that is not always a bad thing. Surgeons spend a few hours with the patients. Therapists can spend days, months, and even years to help a patient fully recover and retain the best possible results.

The effects the baby boomers have on healthcare are not all negative. The recent advances in technology and medicine are expensive. However, the advances in technology may potentially decrease the amount of people dealing with chronic health problems. Ronald Lee and Jonathon Skinner conducted a study dealing with the expectations of America’s healthcare as the elderly population increases. They found that “disability and morbidity will continue to become more compressed, leading to healthier years later in life”. With an increase in the overall health of the elderly population, there will be a decrease in the number of health issues. The higher technology costs, growth of spending and a larger number of people who are spending will continue to grow (Gigante). Baby boomers may not be the only cause for the increase in demand for physical therapists. With high health care prices comes increased health insurance nationwide. This most likely means that the demand for physical therapists will continue to climb within the next 10-20 years because health insurance will be covering these expenses. Even though the baby boomers may not be the only reason for the increasing demand in physical therapy, it is the most reasonable and has the most supporting evidence behind it. Without patients seeking help in rehabilitation, there would be no purpose for the career of a physical therapist. The older generation will be important for the expansion of the career. 

Because of the sudden rise in demand of physical therapy, there will most likely need to be changes in our healthcare system that will help to meet the needs of the baby boomers. Changes in the way healthcare currently works can help meet the long-term care required by upcoming elderly generations. More specifically, there will need to be a larger focus on the financial and social service aspects of our system. One way to help with the financial issue is to “develop payment and insurance systems for long-term care that work better than existing ones” (Knickman and Snell). This can help patients pay easier for their treatments and rehabilitation services. In order to help the projected social service burden in healthcare, they will need to “take advantage of advances in medicine and behavioral health to keep the elderly as healthy and active as possible” (Knickman and Snell). With these small changes, the elderly of America will not be seen as a problem we will have to overcome, but an opportunity to help people who have experienced illness or injury to recover and return to a normal life.  

Physical therapy has been an important component in the health care system for a long time. Even in a struggling job market or if the economy is down, physical therapy will be in demand. Personal health is not driven by the health of the economy. People get sick in good times and in bad times. There will never be a time where rehabilitation is not essential because there is always someone who wants and needs care. This makes job stability one of the most intriguing parts of pursuing this career. Along with job stability, the salary in the career of physical therapy is relatively high. The above-average salary sits around $85,000 a year. This earning potential can vary according to years of experience, education, location and many other factors. Out of those few factors, location plays a major role in the success of a physical therapist. A person working in a largely populated city such as New York City will have more patients than a person living in a small populated town of Wisconsin. Along with location, a significant number of physical therapists around the country own or co-own their own practice in order to have more success. One thing is for sure, there will be requirements for physical therapy in every city, town, and state in the country. 

In any career the person choosing that career wants to feel that they will be performing a task that has a positive impact on the world or on another human being. A physical therapist has the opportunity to do both. What can be more rewarding than helping a Grandmother restore her movement after a stroke so that she can play with a grandchild? What can be more rewarding than to help and encourage a person back to an active lifestyle that has lost mobility due to surgery or an injury? Restoration of the quality of life to a patient is a reward that brings great satisfaction to the giver and the receiver of the therapy. Watching the progression from “I can’t” to “I can” brings the same amount of satisfaction regardless of the age of the participant. The smile from a child tying his shoe for the first time is the same as the smile of a 71-year-old learning to tie a shoe again after a stroke. It is a smile of joy … and accomplishment. The elderly person would probably appreciate mastering the task a little more and that is one special reason of the many reasons that Boomers will need physical therapy more than ever in the future and that there is a new generation of therapists training and learning so that they will be there when the time comes.  
