Volume 3, Issue 2

July 2006

In This Issue:

1. Traveling with a Health Condition or Disability

2. Preventing Infections When Traveling

3. Traveling Outside the United States

4. Travel and the Life Saving Medic Tag

5. Remembering Medicine: You CAN Take It With You

6. Health Tips To Reduce Fatigue When Traveling

7. Ask Dr. Vanessa

8. Announcements

1. Traveling with a Health Condition or Disability

• This is a very useful link about Medical Information for Americans traveling abroad http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/health/health_1185.html 

• If you have a disability, here is a very interesting link to learn about travel destinations around the world for those with disabilities. http://www.makoa.org/travel.htm 

Read on for pre-planning tips, travel suggestions, general health ideas, and some amazing new devices for your health and safety.

Planning Your Trip

Whether you are traveling in the United States or overseas, the best way to ensure a carefree and relaxing trip is to prevent problems before they happen. Consider your health and safety needs as you are planning your trip. The more you learn about your destination and destination activities, the less opportunity for travel related problems. If you are traveling abroad, you will need to know about passports, visas, customs, immunizations, drug policies (if you take medications) and other travel basics.  

Consider the Physical Demands of Your Travel Experience 

If you are a traveler with a health condition or disability, you also must consider the physical demands of your planned vacation.  

• Will you be walking, stepping into/or out of buses, trains or cars, climbing mountains or stairways, riding motorcycles or bicycles, etc?  

• Will you be bending, reaching, moving things, lifting luggage, standing in line, sitting for long periods of time, using your eyes for detailed observation inside or for long distance observation outside?  

• Will you be hot, cold, or wet?  

• Will you have time to rest, time to sleep, time to care for your health?  

• How will you safely store medications?  

• Will you be able to get medical help if you need it?  

• Do you know where you could go for medical assistance?  

• Do you know how you would pay for your treatment?  

• If you are unable to speak for yourself in an emergency, do you have a way to communicate your health history? We have an answer. Check out Medic Tag!

Consider Your Limits, Abilities and Medical Needs 

If you are planning a vacation, and have challenges, be practical and consider your limits, abilities and medical needs before purchasing your ticket. Pushing yourself beyond your normal daily limits (doing too much) on your vacation can cause pain and set the stage for injury or ill health. Planning a pleasant vacation requires planning ahead, knowing where your resources are, and having the ability to rapidly respond or get assistance in an emergency.  

Check out this great link for Americans traveling abroad -  http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/health/health_1185.html 

Read "Getting Ready for Your Trip".

Ø Back to Top

2. Preventing Infections When Traveling

Wash your hands! It is an easy and important preventive step to reduce the chance of getting infected. It also reduces the chance of spreading germs to others. Washing hands is an effective means of preventing the delivery of infectious germs from nasal secretions, saliva or other body fluids that may contain viruses) from soiled hands to the mouth, nose or eyes, where it can enter the body. Washing hands with soap and water or alcohol based gels removes potentially infectious material from the skin.

How To Wash Hands 

Everyone knows how to wash hands, right? Wrong! The best way to wash your hands is with soap and clean running water. It is not enough to just quickly rinse your hands under running water. Completely lather your hands rubbing every part of your hands and fingers for 20 seconds, then rinse with clear running water. 

If soap and clean running water are not available, use an alcohol-based product to clean your hands. Alcohol-based hand rubs significantly reduce the number of germs on the skin. They are also fast acting. When using an alcohol-based hand rub:

• Apply product to the palm of one hand

• Rub hands together

• Rub the product over all surfaces of hands
  and fingers until hands are dry.

When to Wash Hands 

When traveling, hands should be thoroughly washed before eating, touching the eyes, nose or mouth. Wash the hands after coughing, sneezing, using the toilet, or handling soiled tissues. It is also very important to wash your hands after touching surfaces such as in lavatories, escalators, elevators, doors, trains, buses, airplanes, cruise ships or other surfaces the public could have touched. Waterless alcohol-based hand gels may be used when soap is not available and hands are not visibly soiled. There are many alcohol based products available that can be easily carried when traveling.  Keep them with you in your pocket or purse, and use them regularly whenever traveling or out in public places.

Ø Back to Top

3. Traveling Outside of the United States

1. Travel and Medicare 

Did you know if you travel abroad, the Medicare program does not provide coverage for hospital or medical costs outside the USA? If you are traveling outside of the United States, and you have a pre-existing medical condition, you should carry a letter from your treating physician, describing the medical condition and any prescription medications, including the generic name of prescribed drugs. Keep your letter with your passport.

Another terrific option is to consider the tremendous new product, "Medic Tag". The Medic Tag can help you to discreetly carry this information with you wherever you go.

2. Know Your Resources When Traveling Abroad

If you are traveling outside of the United States, check out the World Health Organization website. This is a terrific resource to learn about health risks, precautions, immunizations, traveling by air, environmental health risks, what to do in the event of accidents, injuries and violence, infectious diseases, etc. Check it out. http://www.who.int/ith/en/

3. Emergencies When Traveling

Traveling Overseas: If you are traveling abroad, be sure to complete the information page on the inside of your passport providing the name, address and telephone number of someone to be contacted in an emergency. Keep your written prescriptions with your passport papers. Another very useful option is to carry the Medic Tag with you.

Ø Back to Top

4. Travel and the Life Saving Medic Tag

We found a terrific new must have product for everyone, called the Medic Tag. It is small enough to be carried on a key ring. But it is mighty. The MedicTag enables you to carry your health and emergency information with you at all times. The Medic Tag can save your life if you are ever unable to respond in an emergency situation. Anyone with a computer can download your medical and emergency information when you are unable to speak for yourself. By giving first responders access to your emergency medical information, the Medic Tag can quickly assist responders to make the best medical decisions in a crisis, avoid the sometimes very dangerous duplication of medications and other kinds of errors associated with illegible or incomplete drug information. It could be a life saver. Find out more!

Medications and Travel

Traveling is a change of scenery and routine. The change in daily life can be wonderful and thrilling. But, if you take medications, it is vital to remember to stick to your medication routine. Prescribed medications have to be taken exactly as prescribed, especially when traveling. If you have a tendency to forget about taking medications in your normal daily life, we found the NexDose® to be a terrific assistive tool. Read all about it in the following article written by John Strucke of Senior Health Advantage.

Ø Back to Top

by John Strucke

Once you’ve been diagnosed with chronic illness, such as congestive heart failure, emphysema, COPD, asthma, and some forms of cancer, it is critical to defend yourself against worsening health by faithfully taking your medications.

According to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid (www.cms.org), if you take every medication dose on time, your risk of going to the hospital is reduced by 70%. Faithfully taking prescribed medications is an important factor in maintaining health and living independently at home. But everyone forgets, some of us too often.  As the number of prescribed medicines increases the chance of forgetting multiplies. Traveling can increase forgetfulness. Fortunately, we live in an age where there are wonderful little tools to help.

The Senior Health Advantage network (www.seniorhealthadvantage.com) offers a series of tools that help keep you on track with medicines. NexDose®, is a simple and inexpensive little device that looks just like a pager. You can clip it to your belt or purse.  You, your nurse, a pharmacist, or your computer-expert son or daughter can simply key in the medicines you take and when you take them. After that, NexDose® will ‘beep’ whenever it’s time to take your medications. It will also tell you, in big clear writing on its display, exactly which medicine is due. You just press a button to indicate you got the message and are taking your pills.  Best of all, it goes everywhere that you do. 

NexDose® keeps a list of ALL your medicines and stores information about when you took them. This can be a powerful tool for your doctor, to know what, when and how you have been taking your prescriptions. NexDose® costs less than $20./month.  When you think about it, not much to invest in health and independence, and a very useful tool when traveling. Check out NexDose®  at www.seniorhealthadvantage.com .

The author is John Strucke, VP Clinical Services, Senior Health Advantage Network.

Ø Back to Top

Energy Saving Tips

• Schedule your most demanding tasks for the time in the day when you are usually at your best.

• Balance rest with activity. Try to rest before you get too fatigued. This may help you avoid future fatigue.

• Vary activities – don’t sit, stand or walk too long

• Take a short nap (20 minutes or less) whenever possible.

• Practice deep breathing for a minute whenever you feel tired.  (For more information on deep breathing, check out this site http://www.uiowa.edu/~shs/stress2.htm)

• Control your pain. It can be exhausting. Do not let it get out of control.

• Drink plenty of water. (Fatigue is a side effect of dehydration.)

• Ask for help when you need it.

• Fatigue can put a damper on life. Watch negative "self-talk". When all else fails, laugh! Humor with fatigue is more tolerable that misery with fatigue.

Nutrition Tips

• Avoid alcohol, tobacco and caffeine

• Eat regular meals, avoid a lot of fats and over eating.

• Drink plenty of water throughout the day

Read "Skip the Caffeine, Drink Water".

7. Ask Dr. Vanessa

We have noticed that my mother, who is 72 and on heart and cholesterol medications, has been bruising very easily, especially on the arms.  We believe this is a result of the blood thinners she is taking, and the way she has been carrying bags, her purse, etc.  Do you have any helpful hints/tips that can reduce the bruising from these every-day activities? Thank you...

—Pleading for Help in PA

Thank you for your question. Bruising has many causes. Certain medications such as aspirin, heparin and steroids can cause bruising. So can allergic reactions, infections and even some forms of medical treatment including radiation and chemotherapy. It can also be caused by normal aging skin, trauma or injury. Your Mom's bruising might be due to a combination of things such as the medications she is taking, her skin, and possibly due to the way she carries bags or her purse.

Trauma or injury to the skin can happen if excessive force is exerted on a small area of the skin. Trauma, resulting in bruising, can easily happen when taking blood thinners. If your Mom carries a purse or plastic bag directly on her forearm or in the palm of her hand, and you notice the color of the skin blanches (turns white) that is a sign there is excessive force on the skin. If this is the area that is bruising, the culprit sounds like "trauma" caused by the extreme force exerted on a small area of the skin when carrying anything with weight. This can be very problematic for people taking blood thinners,  people who have arthritis or other health problems that cause fragile skin, limited strength or limited hand function. 

Supermarket plastic bags can cause a lot of damage if carried on the forearm. The plastic handle can become knifelike. It can cause excessive weight to be forced onto a tiny area of delicate skin nourished by even more delicate blood supply very close to the skin. The force of the plastic on the skin can cause blood vessels to shear or break. This causes internal bleeding and results in the appearance of a bruise.  

The solution is, don't do that! Avoid carrying anything that places direct force in one tiny area of the skin. If your Mom carries a pocketbook by resting the strap on her forearm or crook of the elbow, try spreading the area of force by using a shoulder strap that goes diagonally across the shoulders. This eliminates excessive stress and force on a tiny area and spreads it over a much larger area. This is even better than just hanging the strap of a shoulder bag over one shoulder where the force is again concentrated in one area. If your Mom carries a heavy pocketbook, try reducing the load. This will reduce the strain caused by the resistance of the load. Another alternative is to use a smaller purse.  

If your Mom carries groceries using plastic bags, there are a number of gadgets that make it possible to hand carry plastic bags with less brutalizing force on the skin. Here are a few different sources of shopping handle gadgets you can consider, if you have to carry a bag. Each gadget accomplishes something a little bit different. Choose the best one for your circumstances. http://www.abledata.com/abledata.cfm?pageid=19327&top=15019&productid=75492&trail=0

An even better alternative is to ask for paper bags instead of plastic. Paper bags can be grossly held against the front of the body using two arms to carry the weight. This eliminates the force on one forearm and distributes the weight more evenly to two arms and the back, reducing the possibility of trauma to the skin.

Better yet, rather than carrying the grocery bags at all, use a wheeled grocery cart to transport bags to the car, and into the home. There are many varieties of grocery carts that are easy to lift, unfold and transport. I always keep one in my car to carry books, folders, groceries, household supplies, equipment, beach gear, etc. They are very handy for everyone. 

If bruising is happening without force, and in different areas of the body for no apparent reason, be sure to mention it to the treating physician to determine the cause. Hope this helps. Let us know what your Mom decided to do.

Ø Back to Top

8. Announcements

SAFE: For those of you interested in using the Internet version of the SAFE, we are pleased to announce the SAFE will be available on the Internet October 1, 2006. If you are a company interested in using the SAFE as a value added service, or if your company would like to become a vertical alliance partner or you are interested in nationally distributing the SAFE, contact Dr. Dazio at vmd@safeaging.com

Workshop Presentation: Dr Dazio will be presenting a lively workshop "Sensitivity Training for a Harmonious Workplace" at the International Employees Assistance Professionals conference in Nashville, Tennessee on Sunday, October 8, 2006. 

This participant centered interactive workshop simulates a wide variety of common daily life situations often experienced by aging or challenged individuals. Workshop participants experience simulated losses in vision, sensation, mobility, range of motion and other functional challenges. They discuss personal experiences, develop strategies to reduce or resolve difficult situations, barriers or conflicts in the workplace. The workshop is designed to promote understanding, empathy, sensitivity for a diverse employee population who experience workplace challenges. Props, assistive devices, role playing and other directive or non directive individual, team or large group activities are used.

If your company is interested in having this program or a similar customized program at your place of business, contact Dr. Dazio at vmd@safeaging.com.