Old age is not a disease, a little care and caution can prevent or delay many disabilities. Keeping this in mind and the lack of specialized care available for elderly, HelpAge is now delving deeper into age care services, with regular Physio care services being provided in 12 state capitals such as Delhi & NCR, Shimla, Bhopal, Dehradun, Kolkata, Srinagar, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Lucknow, Puducherry & Chandigarh. More & more senior citizens are now receiving the much required treatment they were earlier deprived off, inhibiting their day to day movement.

In Shimla city there are three major govt. hospitals, but there is no geriatric ward in any of these hospitals. HelpAge India has started Physiotherapy Centres for elders in both urban (Vikas Nagar) and rural areas (Basantpur block, which about 40 Km away from Shimla city) treating conditions that cause disability such as musculo-skeletal diseases, back pain, arthritis, etc. HelpAge has also started its first Physiotherapy Centre in the eastern region in Kolkata. A grant was given by State Bank of India to set it up.

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Abhishikha Mondol, 70, spent her childhood in Oxford Mission in Behala (Kolkata –WB) where her father worked. After marriage she started living in Thakurpukur. Now she lives in Kabardanga in Thakurpukur area, in the southern fringes of Kolkata with her son, daughter-in-law and grandson as her husband passed away long back.

Abhishikha is a regular at Thakupukur Yuva Sangha, our weekly MMU center. She has been coming to our centre since the past five years and this is her only source of regular treatment for hypertension, back ache, general weakness and pains. About a year back she fell from her bed while sleeping and suffered spine bone dislocation. Coming from a poor background she didn’t have the means to get a surgery done. She developed lumber spondilosis and found it extremely difficult to move around. 

After much persuasion by the Kolkata MMU doctor, Dr. Ujjwal Mukherjee, and as her pain became unbearable, she started coming to HelpAge’s physiotherapy centre located in its city office. The results starting showing within 10 days. She was prescribed short-wave diathermy and exercises and our physiotherapist personally administered treatment to her

She now comes to our centre thrice a week. Travels one and a half hours to reach the centre. She says that it is the care, service and benefit she receives here that prompts her to come back time and again. Today she is able to walk without help, her pain has decreased considerably and her discomfort reduced.