Energy conservation: tips for a greater quality of life

Finding ways to conserve energy throughout the day can be a constant focus for people living with lung conditions.

With conditions like Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), a person can experience fatigue due to restricted airflow. This means their body is unable to keep up with the demand for oxygen and, the less oxygen the body receives, the more limited their energy supply becomes. This can leave a person severely fatigued and breathless during everyday activities. By finding ways to save energy in their daily tasks, they can perform many more activities and experience less shortness of breath.

What is energy conservation?

Energy conservation involves using a number of techniques and principles to reduce the amount of energy required to complete an activity. For some, daily activities seemingly easy to others can be exhausting. This approach encourages the efficient use of the body and the completion of tasks in a particular way to help minimise fatigue, stress, and pain.

What can fatigue look like?

Symptoms of fatigue can be physical, mental and emotional and may include:

• Falling behind on chores like cleaning and shopping
• Struggling to maintain personal hygiene
• Feeling out of breath while doing ordinary tasks
• Feeling physically and/or emotionally drained often
• Feeling irritable or frustrated often
• Finding it difficult to maintain relationships with others
• Social isolation.

Tackling fatigue with the Four Ps 

In the Occupational Therapy world, the “Ps” method is often used to help a client manage their energy levels more effectively:

1. Problem solving - Involves identifying challenges contributing to fatigue and finding solutions. You may start using a home care service for help with tasks like cleaning or shopping to conserve energy.
2. Planning - Involves setting achievable goals and scheduling tasks according to energy levels. You may eliminate unnecessary steps of a task, such as finding ways to minimise the frequency of going up and down stairs in your home.
3. Prioritising - Involves determining the importance of tasks, and considering factors like urgency and necessity to work your way through those tasks in a logical way. 
4. Pacing - Involves being mindful of energy expenditure and pacing yourself to prevent exhaustion. This may include breaking activities into smaller segments and spreading them out over days or weeks to make them less overwhelming.

How do Occupational Therapists help?

Occupational Therapists (OTs) can play a big role in helping older adults manage energy levels so they can get the most out of their day.

OTs assess a person's activities of daily living (ADLs) to identify energy draining tasks and suggest techniques to simplify them and reduce fatigue. For example, when making dinner, they may suggest you prepare the ingredients in the morning to save energy for cooking the meal later in the day.

They will train you on the importance of adaptive equipment and assistive devices to make tasks less energy-consuming. For example, they may prescribe a “reacher” to pick up items from the floor without bending over. 

They also address lifestyle factors impacting energy such as sleep hygiene and stress management, and suggest home modifications such as rearranging furniture and improving lighting in your home to make getting around safer and more energy efficient.

Using strategies like these can really boost your energy levels and productivity, helping you make the most of your day and remain independent in your home for longer!

If you are needing support like this, our Occupational Therapists are here to help. You can get in touch with us by visiting one of our Health & Fitness Centres, or giving us a call on 1800 852 772.

Sources:

• https://www.healthline.com/health/copd
• https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/fatigue
• https://versusarthritis.org/about-arthritis/managing-symptoms/managing-fatigue/
• https://www.rcot.co.uk/conserving-energy
• https://www.myotspot.com/energy-conservation-techniques/
• https://www.verywellhealth.com/energy-conservation-techniques-914948