Senior Health: Activity helps your mom in several ways. It keeps her joints limber while also strengthening her muscles and bones.

Exercise benefits the heart and lowers the risk of chronic health conditions like diabetes, heart disease, and high blood pressure. It also helps with balance and stamina and overall good senior health.

Before your mom dives into a new fitness program, she needs to keep a few things in mind. Most importantly, she needs to talk to her doctor. While a fitness program may look appealing, she needs to make sure she’s healthy enough to tackle something new.

Questions to Ask the Doctor

Ask your mom’s doctor if there are any exercises she should avoid. If she has low bone density, her doctor may not recommend activities involving a lot of jumping. She also may need to take it slow if her medications cause dizziness or nausea.

If her doctor is overly concerned, a physical therapist may be recommended to help your mom learn the best exercises for her needs. You want to have her exercising safely to prevent a fall or injury to a joint or muscle.

Invest in a Smart Watch

If your mom has any health conditions, such as heart disease, she may need to carefully monitor her heart rate while exercising. If this is the case, a smartwatch can track her pulse and alert her if it’s getting too high. Some watches even track the heart’s rhythm and alert you if something seems off.

Fitness tracking watches may be able to monitor blood pressure and oxygen saturation levels, too. It varies from one model and brand to the next.

While the fitness trackers aren’t always completely accurate, it’s a handy alert that can have your mom stop exercising and call her doctor. The doctor can run tests to make everything is okay before your mom starts working out again.

Senior Health: Is It Time for Elderly Care?

Have you asked your mom about her daily routine? Are there things she finds hard to do on her own due to the side effects of medications, lower stamina, or arthritis pain? Elderly care aides may be the ideal solution to her changing abilities.

Caregivers can help her carry the laundry downstairs. They can help her safely exercise or get something from the top shelf in her kitchen. They can help with meals, errands, and prescription reminders. Call an elderly care agency to get answers to your family’s questions and learn more about the cost of caregivers who can help with better senior health.

If you or an aging loved-one is considering Elderly Care in Southfield, MI, please contact the caring staff at Crystal Home Health Care today. 313-493-4900

People think of eating disorders as something teens and young adults face.

They’re becoming more prevalent in older adults. A 2013 “Today’s Dietitian” report stated that people 65 or older make up the second-largest age group for anorexia nervosa deaths.

Could your mom or dad’s weight loss be linked to an eating disorder? How can you tell? If you suspect an eating disorder is behind your parent’s weight loss, what do you do next?

Common Eating Disorders

-Anorexia nervosa and bulimia are two of the more commonly known eating disorders. Anorexia involves severely reducing food and calorie intake. Bulimics binge eat and then make themselves vomit or use medications to rid their bodies of the calories quickly.

-Binge eating is the most common type of eating disorder. The person eats large portions of food or high-calorie foods in an effort to feel better. After the binge, guilt and shame settle in.

-Orthorexia, a newer form of eating disorder started in the 1990s. Orthorexia is a disorder where the person becomes obsessed with a healthy diet. A person with orthorexia pays incredible attention to food ingredients and nutritional labels. Refusal to eat foods that contain unhealthy ingredients can become an obsession.

What Do You Do?

If you suspect your mom or dad has an eating disorder, take them to the doctor. Weight loss can be a result of medication side effects, gum disease, and other health issues. It can also be a sign of depression and anxiety.

Around three out of four elderly adults have little sense of taste and smell after 89. That makes foods unpleasant. They don’t taste right, so why eat them?

Smokers also have a diminished sense of taste and smell. That may lead to weight loss, so changes like stopping smoking or finding new ways to add flavor to food are helpful.

Having a professional diagnosis is the first step to take. If it is an eating disorder, you want to talk about therapeutic services to help your parent. Eating disorders are a mental health issue, so your parent needs to see an expert in mental health.

Following the doctor’s appointment, make sure your mom or dad has the necessary support. A supportive therapist and, possibly, group therapy are essential. You also want to make sure your mom or dad has someone at home to encourage and remind them to eat the right foods.

An eating disorder is an uphill battle. Your parent may slip up from time to time, and that’s when they need your support more than ever. Make sure home care aides are there for transportation and meal preparation. Stay active in your parent’s life, but let home care aides help, too.

If you or an aging loved-one is considering Homecare In Detroit, MI, please contact the caring staff at Crystal Home Health Care today. 313-493-4900

Sources:

https://www.todaysdietitian.com/newarchives/110413p44.shtml

If you have an aging parent, they might be interested in starting a regular meditation routine to reap some of the many benefits of meditation. Your parent can practice meditation alone, with a caregiver such as yourself or an elder care provider, or in a group setting. It won’t take long for your parent to begin to see many of these positive health benefits in her life.

Longer Attention Span

Meditating is like a type of weightlifting for your parent’s attention span. It increases strength and endurance. Many people who listen to meditation tapes find that their ability to stay focused on tasks and details increases.
Better Memory

The improved focus your parent will gain through regular meditation may boost her memory and mental clarity. These improvements have been shown to help fight age-related memory loss and dementia.

Reduced Stress

Many people start meditation to help deal with stress. Being stressed can increase a body’s levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Cortisol can release inflammatory chemicals called cytokines, which disrupt sleep, increase anxiety, increase blood pressure, and contribute to fatigue and cloudy thinking. By practicing mindfulness meditation, cortisol levels often drop and produce calm in the person practicing meditation.

Lowered Anxiety

Much like stress, meditation reduces anxiety in those who regularly practice it. By mindfully focusing the brain on calming sounds, images, or phrases, your parent may feel her body relaxing and the anxiety that she has had melting away. Many meditative practices also include focused breathing which relaxes the body as well.

Addiction Support

If your parent has an addiction she is trying to quit – whether it’s smoking, overeating, or another addiction, she may find practicing meditation will help her with the stress and anxiety that often comes with trying to quit an addiction. Having someone support her with her desire to quit, such as an elder care provider, as well as regularly focusing inward through meditation, can be added steps to conquering whatever addiction she is trying to break.

Meditation For Better Sleep

Mindfulness-based meditation helps individuals stay asleep longer and reduces the severity of insomnia. If your parent can become skilled in meditation, it will help her control those racing thoughts that often lead to insomnia. It also helps relax the body by releasing tension and placing a person in a peaceful state of mind. Your parent may find she’ll want to meditate right before bedtime if poor sleep is something she struggles with.

Meditation For Pain Control

While meditation doesn’t necessarily take away the pain, it can help in how your parent reacts to pain, and oftentimes, that reaction is what determines how severe or debilitating pain can be. Meditation can reduce the perception of pain in the brain. This may help alleviate chronic pain when used in addition to medical care or physical therapy.
Use National Meditation Month to have your parent (and maybe yourself as well) give meditation a try and see what benefits it can have for your parent and you.

If you or an aging loved-one is considering Elder Care In Detroit, MI, please contact the caring staff at Crystal Home Health Care today. 313-493-4900

To keep his eyes healthy, your senior needs to look at the foods he eats, the steps he takes when he’s outside, and his habits when doing certain activities for the best eye protection options.

Protect the Eyes During Activities

If your dad’s hobby is woodworking, he needs to have protective goggles. One splinter of wood that goes flying could cause tremendous damage if he doesn’t have protective eyewear in place.

He needs to wear goggles while playing games like racquetball. He should also wear protective eyewear while mowing, pruning trees, or painting the walls inside and outside his home.

Wear the Right Sunglasses

Your dad needs to wear sunglasses when he’s outside on a sunny day. Cheap sunglasses are not always best. He also may not get the best sunglasses if he spends a lot of money.

He needs to make sure the sunglasses cover his eyes and shade the skin around, too for good eye protection. For that reason, wraparound sunglasses are a popular option. His sunglasses need to protect against UVA and UVB rays. Polarized lenses can help stop glare.

Have Sunscreen That’s Safe for the Eyes

The delicate skin on the eyelids needs to be protected. If the sunglasses don’t cover all of this skin, you need to have sunscreen in place. An unscented sunscreen for sensitive skin is best. Make sure your dad applies more sunscreen every couple of hours.

Eye Protection: Eat a Healthy Diet

Your dad wants to eat plenty of foods that contain beneficial nutrients. Lutein is good for the eyes. You’ll find it in broccoli, kale, and spinach. For fruit, he should pick grapes and kiwis to get plenty of lutein.

Antioxidants like vitamin C and vitamin E are also important. Choose berries, citrus fruits, and sweet peppers to get plenty of antioxidants that help with eye health. If he likes nuts and seeds, almonds, flaxseed, sunflower seeds, and walnuts are excellent options that are easily added to salads and breakfast cereals.

Zinc is good for the retina and may help prevent or slow the progression of macular degeneration. Foods that are rich in zinc include blueberries, eggs, peanuts, and shellfish can help with eye protection.

Finally, make sure your dad’s intake of omega-3 fatty acids is high. These fatty acids help fight inflammation. He needs to eat fish like tuna, sardines, salmon, and herring if he wants to boost the amount in his daily diet.

Make sure your mom and dad go for regular eye exams. When they are outside, they must wear a hat, sunscreen, and sunglasses. Are they likely to forget these important steps? Senior care aides can make sure they’re safe during their usual activities and always have eye protection.

Senior care services help with meals, transportation, and housekeeping. Caregivers can help with laundry, personal care, and grooming, too. Call and talk to a representative to make arrangements.

If you or an aging loved-one is considering Senior Care In Detroit, MI, please contact the caring staff at Crystal Home Health Care today. 313-493-4900

Relaxation Therapies

It might sound a bit silly at first, but relaxation therapies like deep breathing exercises and meditation really can help with the pain. There’s a reason that some specific breathing techniques are taught to pregnant women to use during labor. Neuropathy pain won’t necessarily go away completely with relaxation therapies, but it’s possible they can reduce to a level your senior finds more manageable.

Physical Therapy

Another option to consider is physical therapy. Your elderly family member can benefit greatly from exercise, because of the endorphins released during movement. Unfortunately, sometimes people with neuropathy find exercise dangerous or uncomfortable. Physical therapy can help quite a bit because the therapist can show your senior how to adjust her movements and how to move in ways that work for her.

Massage Treatments

Massage therapy helps to alleviate swelling and inflammation that can lead to increased pain levels. It can also help to improve circulation, which can also assist with pain relief. Massage therapy may also help your senior to improve her range of motion and relieve pressure on nerves that can exacerbate neuropathy.

Acupuncture or Acupressure Treatments

Acupuncture uses tiny needles placed at specific points on the body to help to relieve pain and inflammation. Acupressure uses the same points on the body but just pressure instead of small needles. Both can help to relieve the discomfort of neuropathy for some people. If your aging family member feels that she’s tried everything, trying acupuncture might be one more avenue she can try.

Talk Therapy

Counseling may not cure the pain of neuropathy, but it can help with the emotional fallout of dealing with chronic pain. Talk therapy can also help your elderly family member to find coping skills and strategies that can help her to feel better. If she’s struggling with depression due to chronic pain, counseling may very well be helpful.

Your senior may find that a variety of different treatments, beyond what her doctor specifically prescribes, might help her to manage her neuropathy. Home health care services can help her to coordinate these services and can help her to continue to track the rest of her pain management plan, too.

If you or an aging loved-one is considering Home Health Care In Detroit, MI, please contact the caring staff at Crystal Home Health Care today. 313-493-4900