When your parents get older and begin to require your care and assistance, you likely find yourself unsure of how to handle the situation. After all, for most of your life, your parents have taken care of you, and reversing the roles can be a difficult transition to make. And when your parent is suffering from chronic back pain, you may not know what you can do to help them. However, there are numerous ways to help your parent cope with and treat their chronic back pain that are safe and effective for seniors and their more delicate and fragile bodies. Get to know some of these treatments and get started so that your parent can be more comfortable and feel more energetic and healthy.

Chiropractic Care

Many people assume that going to the chiropractor is somehow dangerous to seniors who may have brittle or weakened bones or other health issues. However, chiropractic care is safe for people of all ages and for many different health statuses and conditions.

The idea of chiropractic care is that a person's spinal health and alignment can have a major effect on the person's overall health and can affect the entire body. This is because the spine is the hub of the central nervous system. The nerves that travel along the spine send messages to and from the brain to the rest of the body. As such, if the spine is out of alignment, those nerves may be blocked, pinched, or otherwise damaged and unable to function properly.

Chronic back pain, therefore, may be a result of a misaligned spine that is impeding proper nerve activity and causing the body to be out of balance and out of proper communication with the brain. A highly trained chiropractor can help to remedy this by performing manual manipulations of the spine to get it back into proper alignment.

Chiropractors use gentle techniques that apply less direct pressure to the body to treat seniors who may have lost bone density so as not to cause any injuries and will talk to your parent before beginning any treatment protocol about their overall health and any conditions they may have. This makes chiropractic care a safe and effective treatment for your parent's chronic back pain.

Massage Therapy

Along the same lines as chiropractic care, many people may shy away from massage therapy for senior citizens because they feel that it may cause pain or injury to a weaker body. However, massage therapy comes in many different styles and forms making it safe and effective for older adults.

Massage therapy, unlike chiropractic care, focuses on treating the muscles of the back and body rather than the skeletal system. Muscle tension and muscle knots that develop over time can be the cause of your senior parent's chronic pain. For example, if your parent has limited mobility or low energy, they may remain seated or laying down in bed for extended periods of time every day. This can cause muscles to become stiff and tension-filled and may even create muscle knots due to the positioning of the body.

A gentle massage can manipulate those muscles, rubbing away the knots and loosening the tension that can result in chronic back pain and discomfort. Following a massage session, your parent may, as a result, feel more energetic and more mobile because that stiffness and discomfort has been dealt with.

Now that you have a few ideas of how to help your senior parent with their chronic back pain, you can schedule their appointments and get them the help they need to feel better and more energetic once more.

To learn more, contact a company like Rockwood Chiropractic.