Aging can sometimes be a lot to deal with, and even the most independent seniors don’t truly do it one hundred percent alone. Every task, no matter how small it may seem, when taken together as a whole can become overwhelming and leave you feeling exhausted.
The most common sleep disorder at any age of life is insomnia. And while it affects people of all ages, nearly half of all adults over the age of 60 have trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. And while you might think that poor sleep is merely just an annoyance, something that can be easily remedied and countered with an occasional nap, over the counter sleep aid, or sleeping in late in the morning, the truth is that untreated insomnia can create a significant sleep debt in someone’s life, and can take a serious toll on a senior’s mental and physical health.
Ischemic strokes occur when an artery supplying the brain with blood becomes blocked, which naturally decreases or even completely stops blood flow, which causes a brain infarction. Approximately 80 percent of all strokes are of this type. As clotting problems become more frequent with age, it is of particular concern for those of us caring for seniors, or perhaps aging into that demographic ourselves.
For many seniors, a common challenge is getting a good night’s sleep. As we advance in years, you may notice that you nap more during the day, feel tired much earlier at night, have trouble falling asleep at night, find yourself waking up in the middle of the night, and have a hard time falling back asleep.
Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most terrifying prospects of getting older, as well as one of the most heartbreaking things to see a loved one experiencing and struggling with. There is no way to predict how quickly or slowly it progresses in an individual, nor to what extent it will affect their cognitive abilities.
For many older adults who grew up in a world where the internet was something that only the most forward thinking science fiction could have conceived of, it can be hard to learn to navigate it and use it the way that the younger generations who have never been without it seem to do effortlessly. A study from the UK in 2021, however, showed that older retired adults who use the internet score much higher on cognitive tests than those who do not. The protective effect was most dramatically effective amongst retired women, but the men who used the internet similarly scored higher on tests of memory, attention, spatial abilities, and problem solving.
No man is an island, is how the saying goes, and we humans as a species evolved with a strong need and reliance upon social contact. According to neurologists, the area of our brain that is responsible for communicating and interacting with other people is very large and well-developed. When we spend too much time alone, our mood and mental health can suffer greatly. This is of particular interest to older adults, who, for a variety of reasons, may find themselves having difficulty maintaining social bonds and experiencing regular personal interactions. While it can be challenging to go out of our way to maintain existing and forge new social connections, it is as critical for our overall health as regular visits with a physician.
The aging process brings about a variety of changes to your body and your health. Some people experience minor aches and pains, and others begin to suffer vision loss. While a decline in vision is a common change that happens to us as we age, for some that means simply needing to pick up a pair of reading glasses and a book light, and for others it can be much more severe, with a near total loss of vision.
Loneliness, anxiety, and depression are on the rise with almost every age group. For older adults, who have always been at an increased risk of experiencing loneliness and isolation, it is important to make a more deliberate effort to stay in touch with friends and family. Social isolation and loneliness has been tied to a greater risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, depression and cognitive decline. It’s necessary to feel a connection and warmth, even from a distance. Here are some ideas:
While February is American Heart Month, improving the health of your heart and taking care of the most important muscle in your body should be one of your year round goals. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States for both men and women, tragically costing the lives of around 700,000 people in the year 2020. While it is true that your genetics is one dimension in determining your risk of heart disease, there are many more lifestyle factors that have an impact, such as obesity, diet, physical inactivity, cigarette smoking, excessive alcohol use, and more.
Valentine’s Day doesn’t just have to be a day for couples. It can be a day we set aside to show and express our love for one another, and one that everyone should have the opportunity to celebrate. Everyone should be able to celebrate Valentine’s Day, and we should all make time to show love and affection to all of our family and friends.
While there is a great deal of focus on nutrition and proper eating for our health and wellness, much of what is missing from the conversation is the necessity and function of the various vitamins in our bodies, especially for older adults.
The early symptoms of kidney disease can unfortunately go unnoticed for years due to their subtlety. As kidneys process and remove toxins from the body, any delays in medical treatment can be fatal. Catching the signs early can prevent permanent damage.
Research has identified actions and steps we can take to maintain our health and function as we age into our twilight years. Improving our diet, increasing levels of physical activity, getting health screenings, and managing risk factors for diseases can influence all our different areas of health.
Foods that are high in vitamins, minerals, lean protein, and complex carbohydrates, while being relatively low in calories, are known as “nutrient-rich” foods. Most of these foods don’t need an aggressive marketing campaign, catchy name, or even much packaging. Despite that, however, it’s easier than you think it might be to find them and add them into your diet.
In many cases, anxiety is a normal response to stress. The feeling of elevated alertness is a part of the body’s fight or flight response, which helps us to quickly assess and react to high stakes and dangerous situations. When this response is triggered only situationally, in appropriate conditions, anxiety is otherwise normal and healthy. But for some people, the response is triggered by inappropriate situations that do not actually pose any sort of threat. When anxiety becomes a near constant concern, to the point where life becomes centered around managing fears, worries, and it negatively affects daily life and activities, then it becomes a serious mental health condition.
While some amount of forgetfulness and mental stumbling is normal with the aging process, it should only be occasional and minor, never causing major problems or seriously interfering with a senior’s quality of life. Forgetting someone’s name, failing to recall if you locked the door or not, and losing your keys are all normal lapses of memory that happen to everyone from time to time. However, more serious lapses like forgetting the way home, being unable to remember how a telephone works, or walking into a store and then suddenly not knowing where you are all probably point to an underlying neurological problem, such as Alzheimer’s or another form of dementia.
The holidays are a joyous and celebratory time of the year, with lots of cheer, family fun, and plenty of activity to keep busy. But for many people, the end of the holidays can be a dark, lonely and depressing time. As many as 64% of people have reported feeling what can be described as the post-holiday blues. Oftentimes, the exhilarating feeling of stress, thrill, and excitement from the holidays can translate to a period of feeling sad, tired, and depressed once that excitement is no longer present.
While 80% of resolutions are abandoned by February, that doesn’t mean they’re impossible to do. Goal setting is an important part of success with resolutions, and can help improve your mental health.
Shingles is a disease that causes a painful, blistering skin rash. It affects the nervous system, and is curiously caused by varicella-zoster, the same disease that causes chicken pox. While we recover from the chicken pox, the virus does not actually leave the body, and in fact sits dormant within us, lingering in some nerve cells. It is not known or understood why the virus can reactivate later in life, causing shingles.
In the United States, at least 10 million people have osteoporosis, and millions more have osteopenia, meaning low bone mass, putting them at increased risk of osteoporosis, as well as fractures, breaks, and more. But who is at risk of osteoporosis?
Medications are prescribed to counteract health conditions in the body, and when prescribed and taken correctly, they are wonderful at this job. However, when medications are taken incorrectly, either with skipped doses or erroneously repeated doses, it can cause a major health setback, up to and including death.
There are two ways that diabetes can hurt the largest organ of the human body, the skin. When blood glucose levels are high, it causes the body to lose fluid. As fluid leaves the body, skin can become dry, and itchy.
As we age, we may find that more and more dental problems crop up. Cracked or broken teeth, root canals, possibly even needing dentures, it seems like the mouth is yet another place where the ravages of age take their slow, grinding toll. The amount of care and effort that it seems to take can lead to many ending up neglecting their mouths altogether. After all, you might think, if it’s inevitable I’ll lose my teeth, why should I care? But what many of us may not know, or fail to consider altogether, is that oral health problems can very quickly become very serious.
According to researchers, older adults, their doctors, and their family members together all avoid the conversation about senior driving safety, putting it off for as long as possible. Studies have found that physicians are usually the ones to bring up driving with their elderly patients, but usually only after significant events, like a change in health that massively affected driving, a safety concern reported by a family member, or an obvious red flag like a crash.