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A 2 Minute Walk Can Change Your Life

Date: May 14, 2018
Author: Erynn
Categories: Stories & Tips
A 2 Minute Walk Can Change Your Life

Exercising is hard. It’s hard to find time, motivation, or energy to do. But did you know that that a 2 minute walk could change everything?

A 2 Minute Walk Can Change Your Life

2 Minute Walk

 

It sounds like a lie but walking for 2 minutes, 15 times a day can make you healthier. It’s not how long you exercise, as long as it’s consistent.

Federal guidelines suggest that at least 30 minutes a day of moderate exercise is good for us. It will help reduce our risk of many diseases and dying prematurely.

The Guidelines

 

First published in 2008, the guidelines have recently gotten upgraded. Scientists and governmental regulators were surprised to find that there are only a few recent studies on the power of exercise and that they relied on people’s unreliable memory.

So they began to look for new data. They found it in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. This is conducted every year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The New Study

 

For a new study, scientists chose new data from around 4,840 men and women past the age of 40 who had worn activity trackers. Using the tracker results they calculated how much time a day each person spent doing moderate physical activity.

Moderate activity was defined as brisk walking or perhaps jogging. If a single session went on for more than 5 minutes it was considered to be a “bout” of exercise. If it was shorter than 5 minutes was considered to be sporadic physical activity. This could be like walking down the hallways or up a short flight of stairs.

Orginally the scientists were going to focus on 10 minute bouts of exercise, which was recommended at the time, but so few people of the study did that, that they had redifine their terms.

To finish the study, they looked at death records to see whether any of the participants died in 2011.

The Results

 

Scientists found that moving strongly influenced longevity. The men and women that were least active, exercising moderately for fewer than 20 minutes a day, were at the highest risk of premature death.

Those who moved more, especially around an hour, often cut their mortality risk in half.

It didn’t matter how they accumulated those minutes. If people walked for five minutes or longer they lowered their risk of dying young. But they also gained the same benefits if they did short repeated spurts. As long as they moved often.

Dr. William Kraus, a professor at Duke University who conducted the study with other researchers, says:

“The little things that people do every day can and do add up and affect the risk for disease and death.”

These little things can include walking from your car to the office, taking the stairs instead of an elevator, or a casual stroll.

Read more here.

Caregiver Shortage is Affecting NH and VT

Date: May 6, 2018
Author: Erynn
Categories: Stories & Tips
Assisting the Elderly and the Importance of Communication

Caregivers are essential when it comes to a good quality of life for seniors. They help seniors with tasks that we don’t even think about. Things like getting dressed, bathing, housekeeping, and more things that most people do without a thought. Both New Hampshire and Vermont are facing a caregiver shortage though.

Caregiver Shortage is Affecting NH and VT

Caregiver Shortage

 

The problem in both states is that the elderly population is growing bigger than the workforce that can assist them. There is also an extremely low unemployment rate, around 3 percent in both New Hampshire and Vermont.

Another struggle is the low pay rate and hard work that’s involved in caregiving. Most companies offer under 15 dollars an hour so that the elderly can afford to get help. So the amount of people willing to do the work for that pay is small. This leads to competition between companies to keep and gain employees.

In health care, the shortage has forced employers to offer nurses and nursing assistants flexible hours, loan repayment, on the job training, and opportunities to continue to work part time after retirement. Nursing homes have had to turn to traveling nurses for extra help.

The problem with traveling nurses is that they tend to be more expensive than local employees and they leave. This disrupts the care and can leave seniors lonely if they grew close to the nurse.

The Aging Population

 

In New Hampshire, residents 65 and older will make up almost 30 percent of the state’s population by 2040. The residents aged 25 to 64 will drop from 54 percent in 2015 to 45 percent by 2040.

Vermont faces similar problems. People 65 years and older will be 27 percent of the population by 2030.

Access Issues

 

Another tough aspect is that many seniors are on Medicaid or Medicare. People who are on these programs are actually more lucky than most. Medicaid will pay for someone to come to their home to help them for a certain amount of hours. But they may not qualify for enough hours that they need.

People who don’t qualify for Medicaid are in a rock and a hard place. They don’t have enough money to afford care, but they don’t have little enough to be on Medicaid.

How You Can Help

 

If you want to help, feel free to apply to be a caregiver with us! We help seniors of all walks of life. We will work with you to find the right senior to match with you. We offer competitive pay and are never short of gratitude for those who work with us. We know your value.

If you know of someone who needs help, feel free to send them our way. We would love to help them with either service or advice. We just want to give seniors the best quality of life as possible.

Read more about the shortage here.

An Elderly Nightclub?

Date: May 6, 2018
Author: Erynn
Categories: Stories & Tips
What Age Does Your Self-Esteem Peak?

In London there is an active nightclub. People are dancing to 50s rockabilly, they are sipping alcohol in flutes, and they are all dressed to the nines. This is not a club for the younger crowd. In fact, it’s an elderly nightclub, through really the party is happening at 2 PM. The average age is 60-years-old, most are much older.

An Elderly Nightclub?

Elderly Nightclub

 

The club, called The Posh Club, holds weekly cabaret-style parties for seniors for only 5 dollars a person. The club puts the disjointed hip in hipster. Often there are crutches and walking sticks left by the dance floor. This club and a few others are trying to reinvent the idea of older people being social. It’s no longer just sitting around quietly. It’s supposed to be fun.

Producer Dicky Eaton loves being part of The Posh Club. He says the club is really an anti-loneliness campaign presented as a club. He says:

“A lot of our guests maybe don’t get out as much as they once did and don’t see friends as often. Well, this provides a unique way to do both, while also being part of something that’s vibrant and exciting. Just because you reach a certain age, doesn’t mean you don’t want to have fun anymore.”

Like it’s been said before, loneliness is a huge problem for seniors. They are often overlooked and alone. This club reminds the world that older people want to have fun.

How The Posh Club Happened

 

The Posh Club founders are Simon Casson and his sister Annie Bowden. Their mom moved to a new town and was feeling lonely. To cheer her up, the siblings threw a vintage tea party in her living room. They invited neighbors, who were both in their 90s, and served food while playing a 1940s records.

The ladies loved it so much that Casson and Bowden did it again. This time though, they went bigger. They held it in a local church hall and invited older people from all over town. They decorated the hall, got more records, and even convinced some friends to be waiters. Thus, The Posh Club was born.

What’s the Future of This Elderly Nightclub?

 

They have expanded the club in five locations. The funding is tight, it’s run as a social enterprise subsidized by grants. They hope to open more clubs because many people have said that they wish there was one where they lived.

Read more here.

Older Americans May Be Taking Too Many Vitamins

Date: May 6, 2018
Author: Erynn
Categories: Stories & Tips
Government are Warning About a Drug Being Pushed on the Elderly

More than half of America take vitamin supplements. 68 percent of those who take vitamins are 65 and older. Of that 68, 29 percent take 4 or more supplements of any kind. Are older Americans taking too many vitamins?

Older Americans May Be Taking Too Many Vitamins

Wanting an Easy Solution

 

The National Institutes of Health have spent more than 2.4 billion dollars since 1999 studying vitamins and minerals. They don’t appear to have much to show for it. There’s no conclusive evidence that dietary supplements prevent chronic disease in the average American. While there’s been the occasional positive finding, it isn’t enough to recommend it to the general public.

Part of the problem is believed to be that people think they need more vitamins than a regular diet provides. This includes doctors as well. Even though research shows that people who eat a lot of fruits and vegetables are plenty healthy without vitamins.

Granted, Western diet has some issues with too much sodium, sugar, saturated fat, and calories in general, it’s not short on vitamins. People just want to swallow a pill and be better instead of putting some effort into creating and maintaining a good diet.

Taking Too Many Vitamins

 

There are more than 90,000 dietary supplements to choose from. Federal health agencies and advisors still recommend that Americans meet their nutritional needs through food, especially fruits and veggies.

American food actually tends to be highly fortified. There’s vitamin D in milk, iodine in salt, B vitamins in flour, and calcium in some types of orange juices. This can make it hard for proper studies because it’s not easy to find a control group who haven’t partaken in these fortified foods.

Taking too large a dose of vitamins and minerals—amounts that you wouldn’t get from food alone—could be causing more trouble than its worth for people. For example, an early study suggested that beta carotene, a substance found in carrots, could help prevent cancer. In the tiny amounts provided by fruits and vegetables, beta carotene appears to protect the body from a process called oxidation. This damages healthy cells.

Experts were shocked when a study done in the 1990s found that beta carotene pills actually increased lung cancer rates. A similar study found that vitamin E in large doses increased the risk of prostate cancer in men by 17 percent.

Read more here.

Program Helps Pets of Dying Owners

Date: April 29, 2018
Author: Erynn
Categories: Stories & Tips
Program Helps Pets of Dying Owners

Pets are such an important aspect of our lives. There’s nothing more tragic than a pet dying or maybe an owner leaving their pet behind. There’s a new program called Pet Peace of Mind, that helps the pets of dying owners. The program allows owners and pets to stay together until the end.

Program Helps Pets of Dying Owners

How Program Help Pets of Dying Owners

 

The program consists of volunteers that feed or walk pets. They can also take them to vet appointments and grooming visits. Sometimes the program will even pay for food and other essentials. The program will even help place the pet with a new family when the owner passes.

A serious illness can make it hard to do basic tasks for pet care. People might not be able to walk their dog or clean a litter box. Help can even come in unexpected ways. For example, a woman had to go into a nursing home that didn’t allow pets. So a volunteer adopted her dog and visited her every week with the dog until the woman passed.

How Pet Peace of Mind Started

 

The program was created by Dianne McGill. She saw a need for this type of program when someone wanted to help their dying friend. The friend was desperate to help the dying friend’s cats and ensure their care after she died. The cats were going to be put down because family didn’t want to care for them and the woman asking for help was allergic.

When McGill started calling hospices and learned that this was a common problem with no solution. So McGill created Pet Peace of Mind. In 2015, it became a freestanding charity offering pet assistance nation wide.

The Power of the Human and Animal Bond

 

It’s been well documented that pets have a positive affect on the health of humans. It’s been shown that pet owners have lower blood pressure, more physical activities, and lower levels of depression.

It just goes to show that pets are family.

Read more here.

Elderly People Grow as Many New Brain Cells as the Young

Date: April 29, 2018
Author: Erynn
Categories: Stories & Tips
Elderly People Grow as Many New Brains Cells as the Young

For decades it was thought that adult brains weren’t able to form new brain cells. A new study suggests that the elderly can grow as many new cells as teenagers. This suggests that the elderly are more cognitively and emotionally stable than previously thought.

Elderly People Grow as Many New Brains Cells as the Young

The Study

 

The study, done by Columbia University, found that older people continued to produce neurons in the hippocampus at a similar rate as young people. The hippocampus is the part of the brain that holds memory, emotion, and cognition.

Researchers examined the brains of 28 previously healthy people that died suddenly between the ages of 14 and 79.

New Brain Cells

 

The ability to generate new hippocampal cells, also known as neurogenesis, declines in age in rats and primates. The declining production of neurons and parts of the brain shrinking were thought to happen in humans as well. This supposedly explained why younger people could learn and pick up skills so quickly.

What Might Cause Cognitive Decline

 

Researchers did find that there were fewer blood vessels and connections between cells in the older brains. This could be linked to compromised cognitive and emotional resilience in the elderly.

Columbia is hoping the findings will help develop new treatments for brain conditions like Alzheimer’s Disease.

Read more here.

Prison is a Haven for Japan’s Elderly Women

Date: April 29, 2018
Author: Erynn
Categories: Stories & Tips
South Korea is Dealing With an Elderly Crime Wave

It sounds like a joke right? That prison of all places has become a safe place for seniors? But that’s just the case in Japan. Japan has the world’s oldest population and are dealing with a crisis similar to America’s when it comes to senior care.

Prison is a Haven for Japan's Elderly Women

Prison as a Haven

 

Senior crime is something the Japanese government did not see coming. 9 out of 10 senior women have been found guilty of shoplifting. Women are committing minor crimes to get cared for.

From 1980 to 2015 the number of seniors living alone increased sixfold, to almost 6 million. Senior care used to fall onto families and communities but that seems to have changed.

A 2017 survey by Tokyo’s government found that more than half of the seniors that were caught shoplifting lived alone. 40% didn’t have any family or rarely spoke to relatives. These women say they have no one to turn to when they need help.

They are also economically vulnerable, nearly half of those 65 and older live alone and in poverty. This is compared to 29 percent of men. One female inmate said that she stole a package of beef because she wanted it, but was afraid of the financial strain.

What Japan is Doing About This

The government and private sector are at a loss on what to do. They have yet to establish an effective rehabilitation program for seniors. The costs to keep them in prison is rising fast.

Expenses that have to do with elder care pushed the annual medical costs at prisons past 6 billion yen, around 50 million dollars. That’s an 80 percent increase compared to the decade before. Special workers had to be hired to help older inmates with bathing and toileting during the day. But at night it’s up to the guards.

Because of the new nursing duties, more than a third of female correctional officers have quit their job within 3 years.

Click here to read some personalized accounts from the prisoners.

New Diet May Prevent Dementia

Date: April 22, 2018
Author: Erynn
Categories: Stories & Tips
Another Reason the Mediterranean Diet is Good For You

We all know that our diet affects our health, but what if a new diet style could possibly help prevent dementia? Meals from the Mediterranean have been linked to stronger bones, a healthier heart, and reducing the risk of diabetes and high blood pressure. Now we may be able to add lowering your risk for dementia to the list.

New Diet May Prevent Dementia

New Research

 

New research presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International conference in London found that healthy older adults who ate the Mediterranean or other similar diets lowered their risk of dementia by a third. Lead author Claire McEvoy, from the University of California, said:

“Eating a healthy plant-based diet is associated with better cognitive function and around 30% to 35% lower risk of cognitive impairment during aging.”

The Study

 

The study was done with a national representative older population, that way they would be relevant to the general public. The study had 6,000 older Americans participant with an average of 68. After adjusting for age, gender, race, low educational attainment, lifestyle, and heath issues, researchers found that those who follow the Mediterranean diet had a 30% to 35% lower risk of cognitive impairment.

What is a Mediterranean Diet

 

This diet consists of plant base cooking, each meal focusing on fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans and seeds, with a few nuts, and a heavy emphasis on extra virgin olive oil. There are no refined sugars, flours, and fats other than things like butter. You can eat them but it’s extremely rare.

Meat also makes a rare appearance, used only to really flavor a dish. Instead the focus is more on eggs, dairy, and poultry in much smaller portions compared to western diets. Fish though, are key part of the diet.

You can read more here.

7 Ways You Can Help Prevent a Heart Attack

Date: April 22, 2018
Author: Erynn
Categories: Stories & Tips
After a Heart Attack, Medication Could Impact Function

While it can be easy to feel helpless when it comes to heart attacks, due to the fact they strike fast and by surprise, there are things you can do. Most of it has to do with having a healthy lifestyle, but we broke it down into 7 ways you can help prevent a heart attack.

7 Way You Can Help Prevent a Heart Attack

7 Ways to Prevent a Heart Attack

 

1. Eating a healthy diet.

It’s probably the best thing you can do for yourself and the easiest. Healthy diets help minimize the possibility of high blood pressure and diabetes. Eat balanced meals that include fruit and veggies, and cut down on sugar and salt. Check out our article Eating Well to Age Well to give you some ideas.

2. Exercise.

This is the second most important thing. Exercise can be as small as walking. Just getting up and walking around is helpful. Especially seniors who have been sedentary.

3. Quit smoking.

Smoking is the most preventable cause of heart attacks. It’s good to quit at any age, it’s never too late.

4. Drinking responsibility.

Be aware of how much alcohol you consume, this is another easily preventable way to minimize chances of heart attacks.

5. Keep your blood pressure, diabetes, and cholesterol in control.

 

6. Minimize stress.

Yes, easier said than done, we know. If you want some tips check out our articles like Write the Stress Away and Changing Your Views on Stress.

7.Visit your doctor on a regular basis.

This should be self explanatory, you can’t stay healthy without your doctor’s help.

Read more here.

How Your Bucket List Can Help Your Health

Date: April 22, 2018
Author: Erynn
Categories: Stories & Tips
How Ageism Hurts Seniors' Health

Many people have bucket lists. Whether it’s some random ideas in the back of your head to an actual written out list placed somewhere safe. It’s extremely helpful to share your bucket list with your doctor. It helps direct your health plan so that you can climb that mountain, run that marathon, or try skydiving.

How Your Bucket List Can Help Your Health

Why a Bucket List Matters

 

By sharing your bucket list, doctors can help cater your health goals to cross things off your list. It can also make you realize that you need to change your habits. For example, if you want to run a half marathon and are a continual smoker, obviously that isn’t going to work.

Dr. VJ Periyakoil co-published a study in a Journal of Palliative Medicine to discover more about Americans’ bucket lists. The study suggests 6 prevailing themes of list items. Things like wanting to travel, write a book, running a marathon, surfing, and more.

Why You Should Talk to Your Doctor

 

People think that they shouldn’t approach doctors about this sort of thing because it doesn’t seem relevant. But that’s just not the case, the connections can come in surprising ways.

Periyakoil says, “Many people—especially those who are not in perfect health—may underestimate the extensive coordination required to make their bucket list wishes possible.”

Read more here.