FITNESS & EXERCISE


carers and family, is hard. It doesn’t happen because we want it to, it doesn’t happen because it’s right even. It happens little action by little action taken by one person, then the next, then the next. When you know this, you can use it to build social campaigns like #EndPJparalysis. Giving people something to be part of amplifies both connection and commitment to the goal.


We know immobility causes deconditioning; it has been evidenced for over 70 years. We know older people can lose 5-10% of muscle strength within a week of immobility; we also know this can take several years to rebuild – if they ever regain their former strength. This in turn makes people more prone to falling, to pressure ulcers, to incontinence, to cognitive decline and to social isolation. Yet in our eagerness to be kind, to keep people safe and to help we potentially cause harm through avoidable deconditioning.


“Older people can lose 5-10% of muscle strength within a week


of immobility; this makes people more prone to falling, to pressure


ulcers, to incontinence, to cognitive decline and to social isolation.”


The #EndPJparalysis Campaign is about building social currency around reducing deconditioning to prevent that harm. It went from an exchange of tweets back in 2016 to a global social movement by 2018.


The mere suggestion of change or doing more can feel overwhelming for a workforce that has given so much over the last two years, exploring how you create social currency and why it works will help you make change and advance in care practice by increasing involvement and motivation.


To create social currency, you need it to be three things:


1. Connected to something people believe in and want to be part of.


2. Actionable by all involved. 3. Extensible easy to spread.


To be connected your change needs to have a clear message – one with both fact and emotional connection. For #EndPJparalysis this is: ‘Deconditioning causes harm and keeps people from their lives (fact), this is stealing their precious time (emotion).’


It needs to be actionable – we kicked off our campaign with a challenge – a 70-day challenge to get 1 million people in hospital up dressed and moving, we shared guidance and best practice, we created an identity giving participants posters, logos and graphics for social media and we shared pledges of how people planned to support the campaign in their area. All of this built social currency through involvement and action. Think about what you might do in your setting or group to involve people.


twitter.com/TomorrowsCare


Finally, we made what we did extensible by encouraging sharing, letting go of ownership, and creating a platform for people to talk about their work on social media. The result was a whole range of activities insights and success stories – as well as over 700,000 patients up and moving during the initial challenge. These local activities included tea parties, ‘pimp my zimmer’ campaigns, mobility playlists – even reworded classics like the #EndPJparalysis rhapsody, but most of all, health professionals and carers of all backgrounds and seniority having fun and making a difference.


Three global summits later and a fourth in July this year we still see new projects resulting in increased mobility, reduced falls and an ongoing commitment to doing the right thing. And, of course, there is always more to do.


I’ve used #EndPJparalysis as an example here, couch to 5K is another example of social currency keeping people moving, as was Joe Wicks during lockdown. You can apply these principles to pretty much anything you want to make a difference to, here’s you do it:


•


Identify what you want to impact, then make it something others can feel emotional connected with – something they will want to be involved with and impact as well.


• Focus on the things that you can control. Don’t waste your time and energy on the things you have no direct influence over


• Be super clear about what you are trying to achieve and why – especially why!


• Tackle things in bite sized chunks making it easy for others to get involved and take action without overwhelm or having to commit too much.


• Give people what they need to take part or contribute


• Let go of the need to control or even do things your own way – make sure people know what and why, then trust them to come up with how, you may be pleasantly surprised.


• Encourage sharing of ideas – a poster board, social media, a closed group, whatever feels right for your environment.


• Make it fun, competitive, and inclusive – this is what social currency is really about.


Finally, when it comes to mobility, something is better than nothing, so take the opportunities when you have them – both to invest in your future self and to help those you lead and care for. Start small if you need to and remember it is people, people like you & I, that change culture and habit, little step by little step.


Good luck with your campaign.


If you are already doing great work in reducing deconditioning or increasing mobility, we’d love to hear about it, as we are currently pulling together the programme for the 2022 #EndPJparalysis summit and it would be fabulous to have more presentations from the care sector.


www.endpjparalysis.org - 37 -


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