As we age, the physical and mental limitations that the aging process brings about can easily lead to a feeling of losing control of the things in life that you love, such as your senior independence. But the good news is that independence doesn’t have an age limit. Older adults can easily take certain steps to allow them to maintain as much of their independence as they can for as long as possible.
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or, PTSD for short, is a psychiatric condition that can affect people of all ages, including older adults, who have experienced or been a witness to a traumatic event or series of circumstances. PTSD is a complex disorder that can be physical or emotional, or both, and can create a negative impact on a person’s mental health and quality of life.
As our loved ones age, it becomes increasingly important to support their autonomy while ensuring their safety and well-being. Let's explore what goes into promoting self-sufficiency for senior loved ones.
The back-to-school season can be a challenging time for seniors with dementia as they grapple with nostalgia and memory loss. Here's how you can help.
The human body is the most complex system ever created. The more we learn about it, the more we can appreciate what a rich system it is. Over the years, our bodies serve us well. Our muscles allow us to walk, run, dance, hold each other, and all the other things we do that each make a thread in the rich tapestry that is our lives. But as we age, we will inevitably lose some of our strength and balance, and this unfortunately increases our risk of suffering from a fall. In fact, one in four older adults have reported falling at one point or another, which adds up to nearly 36 million falls per year. 8 million of those falls will require medical attention due to injury, and fully half of all seniors who fall will experience another fall in the future.
From political drama, the recent COVID pandemic, rapidly changing technology and norms, and more, there’s no doubt that these modern times can be stressful. For older adults who may have more difficulty navigating news stories and technology like video chatting, the impact can be even worse.
Dehydration is a common, but sadly often underestimated health issue that can affect individuals of any age. But for senior citizens, the impact can be especially severe and also complicated. With the aging process, certain physiological changes occur that can make older adults more vulnerable to the effects of dehydration, which can quickly snowball and lead to serious negative consequences for health.
Many people today find themselves seeking out approaches and practices in their pursuit of good health that may not necessarily be considered to be part of the typical, conventional approach to conventional medical care. According to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, these products and practices generally fall into three categories.
Sleep has a profound impact on our health and our daily function. As we age, we might find our sleep patterns changing. For instance, we might wake multiple times in the night, or wake up earlier in the morning than we’re used to. Sometimes, we may feel that our sleep isn’t as deep as it once was.
For most people, living independently is a lifelong goal, regardless of whatever stage of life they happen to be in. Being independent means making all the decisions in your life, such as how you want to live, where you want to retire, and what is most important to you. For many people, getting older means feeling like those decisions will eventually be taken away from you, but the reality is that it doesn’t have to be that way.
The popular TV show The Brady Bunch showed American audiences an idealized version of a perfectly blended family, with six children, two parents, and a housekeeper. Despite the fact that each parent was only genetically related to three of the kids, they functioned as a family and showed us weekly lessons about love and what it means to be a family. But in real life, things don’t always go so smoothly, and one question is what would have happened to Mike and Carol Brady after the six kids moved out, they entered their senior years, and found themselves needing childcare?
Vascular dementia is a general term describing problems with reasoning, planning, judgment, memory, and other thought processes, caused by brain damage from impaired blood flow to the brain. You can develop vascular dementia after a stroke blocks an artery to your brain, but strokes don’t always cause vascular dementia. It can also result from other conditions that damage blood vessels and reduce circulation, depriving your brain of vital oxygen and nutrients.
It is of course difficult to make healthcare decisions for ourselves, especially when it comes to planning on what to do as we begin to wind down and approach the great unknown. But some of us are tasked with making those decisions for the people we care about, when they are for whatever reason unable to do it on their own behalf. Even if your loved one sorted out their advance care planning beforehand, it is likely that it will not cover all possible medical treatments and options. So how can you best advocate for those you care about when they cannot do it for themselves?
When a loved one falls or has trouble rising from bed or a chair, we will of course want to help them. One of the essential talents of a caregiver is to safely move a loved one from surface to another. There are numerous types of transfers, with varying degrees of difficulty depending on aptitude and circumstances.
With the Summer season in full swing, many of us are making travel plans to get away for a while, either for leisure or to spend time visiting with family and friends. This is a good thing, getaways are important for our physical and our mental health. And traveling offers the change to create lasting memories and create meaningful connections with the people around us. But if you, or one of your loved ones traveling with you, has a current heart condition or a history of heart problems, you may find yourself wondering just what is safe when it comes to journeys by planes, trains, and automobiles. It’s important to be well prepared and informed to ensure a safe journey for everyone involved. Here are some important things to keep in mind as you create your plans for summer travel.
Cataract surgery is a common procedure and generally safe, but like any surgery, there's the potential for complications. Let's briefly discuss what those are and how to handle them.
In television and movies, the portrayal of dementia has long been fairly stereotypical. The scene is usually an elderly woman, usually in a nightgown in the middle of the evening, wandering around outside of the home. She will appear lost and distracted, and be unable to recognize her own children when they find her and want to bring her to safety, and may even resist them stubbornly or aggressively.
As summertime settles in, it’s crucial to understand how the hot weather could affect the medications commonly used by your senior loved one.
The experience of loving someone deeply and profoundly, only to one day have to suffer through the loss of them, is something that everyone under the sun is likely to experience at one point or another throughout life. After all, death is the one thing that all of us are certain to go through someday.
More than 5 million people in the United States are living with a diagnosis of dementia. Globally, it is the seventh leading cause of death among all diseases according to the World Health Organization. Societal costs of dementia are estimated at $605 billion per year, and as the population gets older overall, the number of people with dementia is only expected to increase, with estimates of over 7 million Americans living with dementia by 2025, and over 15 million by 2050.
Many people tend to view retiring as though they’re looking at a spreadsheet of finances. They do the math equation of how much money do you have, when do you want to retire, and how much money you’ll need for that, and the answer is to save as much as you need each year to have that amount when you get to the projected retirement age. And then once that question is answered, the goal is ultimately to simply never work again, forever.
Many of us have a collection in one form or another. Perhaps we buy snow globes or refrigerator magnets as souvenirs whenever we go on a trip. Maybe you collect jewelry or other items from a specific time period. You might have binders filled with years of baseball cards, or boxes with bagged and boarded comic books. But while compulsive hoarding may seem similar at first blush, it is a different animal than simply having a collection or two that have gotten out of control.
Arthritis is a painful and debilitating condition that happens to be common among older adults. It has been estimated that at least 92.1 million adults currently living in the United States have either an official diagnosis of arthritis from their healthcare provider, or they report having joint pain and other symptoms that are consistent with a diagnosis of arthritis. While the chronic pain that is associated with arthritis would be a troubling enough issue on its own, arthritis also has a very profound and detrimental effect on the quality of life for those who suffer from it, especially older adults.
It seems that these days, just about everyone has a smartphone in their pocket, which means everyone just about everywhere has a camera on them wherever they go. It’s no wonder that it has become second nature for most people to whip out their phone the moment they see something interesting so they can take a picture or video. But a number of experts have said that relying on our devices to do all the remembering might result in us returning from vacation with actually fewer memories of the sights we saw.
Hot weather can lead to a multitude of sleep disturbances for senior adults, from body temperature regulation changes to increased dehydration risks and other discomforts. Thankfully, there are ways to navigate these hurdles and ensure your senior loved one can sleep soundly through the warmer months.