Health and Life Influences - SAFE Aging Newsletter

This month’s theme is health and life influences that affect safety and daily life abilities. Dr. Dazio has written “Successful Aging: Thriving, Not Just Surviving” and includes successful aging tips. Podiatrist, Dr. Sal De Lellis has authored our feature article "Diabetics Have a Higher Risk of Falls and Injury", Linda Lucente tells us about reverse mortgages, and Marilyn Larkin discusses posture. Learn how to recognize a stroke and lifestyle choices you can make to prevent stroke. Take an emergency planning risk quiz. See an Internet resource for the USDA’s most recent food pyramid.

The SAFE Aging newsletter is written for people age 65 and older; families, vendors and service providers of older adults. If you like our free newsletter, pass it along to your friends, family and associates. We would love to hear your comments at newsletter@safeaging.com!

Diabetic peripheral retinopathy can make you lose balance! It is one of the leading causes of falls and injury. Diabetes uniquely affects the sensory and motor (nerves to the muscles) nerves. This causes a direct loss of sensation to sharp, dull, light touch, hot, cold stimuli. The change may be so subtle as to not be recognized, however the dangers are not.

This specific neuropathy also causes a decrease in proprioception. Proprioception is the ability of a person to orient themselves and their joints in space. These changes directly affect gait (walking) and balance.

The following are general guidelines diabetic patients can immediately use to lower diabetic risk factors:

Fortunately, there are sophisticated methods to assess one’s gait and balance abilities in diabetics and also in individuals that have neuropathy resulting from spinal stenosis or low back problems. There are state of the art methods by which these neuropathy’s can be treated successfully decreasing the risk of falls, injuries, ulcers, infections and amputations without the need for pills.

The office of Dr. Salvatore De Lellis is located at 1264 S. Pinellas Avenue, Tarpon Spring, 34689, directly across from Helen Ellis Memorial Hospital. Dr. De Lellis offers comprehensive gait, balance and neuropathy assessment along with state of the art treatment to help maintain health.

What is successful aging? Ask 100 people this question and depending on personal perspectives and opinions, you will get a100 different answers. Successful aging is about thriving, not just surviving.

There is no doubt that older adults have unique life challenges and different medical needs that change with time. Staying ahead of the possibilities can make a difference between independence and dependence, health and illness, ability and disability, and even life or death.

To thrive, and not just survive, the senior has to take personal control of one’s life, health and safety. Here are some tips for successful aging.

The Healthy People 2010 report concludes that about 75% of Americans eat too little fruit, 95% eat too few vegetables and 64% eat too much saturated fat. Where do you fit?

For more information about healthy eating, see the United State Department of Agriculture (USDA) newest food pyramid at http://www.mypyramid.gov/

I recently asked a client if she had made emergency plans in the event of a fire, tornado, hurricanes, natural disasters, etc. She answered “I live alone, what is there to plan?”

Emergency planning is an activity that should be done by everyone, regardless of age, ability or living arrangements. Tragedies, disasters and other emergencies happen without regard to age, sex, ability or location. To be prepared for an emergency, you simply have to think about it then make an action plan. You are at risk if you live in an area that could flood, has tornados, earthquakes, hurricanes, wildfires, freezing water, hail, water or the possibility of any other natural disaster. Terrorism is another emergency concern. Here are some very basic questions to begin your emergency planning efforts.

If you have a physical condition that could interfere with your ability to quickly evacuate your home or work, plan what you need to do to assure your safety. Take the Disability Emergency Planning Quiz as your first step. Any YES answers suggest a need to develop a written emergency plan. Emergency plans should consider all emergencies that could happen in your area.

The Center for Disease Control has an excellent site describing what you should know about preparing for hurricanes or recovering from them. There is a terrific resource list of easy to read printable materials written about a wide variety of subjects related to hurricanes. We think the following are particularly useful and would be a great resource to have in your important informational file.

Good posture allows you to breathe better--the result of lifting and opening your chest instead of slouching. It also improves the impression you make on others (when you stand tall, you radiate confidence!) and your ability to do daily activities, including taking care of a loved one who needs help getting around.

Most of us can sit or stand tall for a minute or two before we find ourselves slumping again. This is because in order to maintain good posture, the muscles of your back (particularly the mid and upper back, which lift the chest) and core (abdominals, buttocks, upper legs) need to be strong. Here are just a few exercises to help strengthen these muscles:

1. Retract shoulder blades: Squeeze shoulder blades together; for more benefit, squeeze while pulling a resistance band across your chest. Repeat.

2. Open chest: Put your hands by your ears; pull your elbows back towards each other, feeling the chest lift and open; bring elbows forward and repeat.

3. Abdominals in and up: Clasp your hands together around your lower abdomen; pull the muscles in and feel as though you are lifting them up behind the chest. Breathe normally--don’t hold your breath! See what it feels like to walk around that way!

Marilynn Larkin is an ACE-certified personal trainer and group fitness instructor, and a regular contributor to medical journals and general interest publications, including the American Society on Aging’s newsletter, Aging Today. Her Posture-cize^sm DVD launches in May. For more information and to contact Marilynn, see www.mlarkinfitness.com.

Are you or a family member at risk for poor health, illness or disability? At risk individuals have multiple risk factors, that when combined together increase the risk or potential for ill health or harm. Because so many diseases and accidents are preventable, knowing your risks is a wise path toward continued health and safety.

If you want to know whether you are at risk for illness or injury, consider taking a few minutes of time to complete the SAFETY APPRAISAL FOR ELDERS (SAFEK) The SAFEK helps to highlight risk factors that might not even have been realized.

SAFEK provides the structure to systematically think about personal health and life influences that affect safety and health, abilities in activities of daily living, ergonomic risk factors, emergency planning and in- home safety.

After the SAFEK is completed, a score is developed to make visualization of risk easier. Scoring highlights potential health and home safety risk factors that could lead to ill health or injury. High risk scores make it easier to establish personal priorities and track future changes.

After the score is established, a personalized risk adjustment plan (RAP) is created. The RAP is developed based on identified potential risk factors, about what can be done to be healthy, stay safe or reduce health or safety risks. It can be used as a basis to determine whether professional help or other interventions are needed.

The SAFEK can be easily completed in the privacy of one’s home, at a comfortable pace, with or without assistance. For more information, call us at 866-SAFE-AGE.

Reverse mortgages are growing in popularity for homeowners 62 years and older who want to convert a portion of the equity in their houses into tax-free proceeds.

A reverse mortgage works much like a traditional or forward mortgage, but as the name implies, in reverse. Rather than making monthly payments to a lender, the lender makes payments to the homeowners. Seniors don’t sell their homes or give up title. No monthly payments are made on a reverse mortgage and there is no fixed maturity date-as long as the borrower lives in the home. The loan simply becomes repayable when the house is sold or no longer the primary residence of the borrower.

A reverse mortgage is not considered income and does not affect Social Security or Medicare. There are virtually no restrictions on what can be done with the money obtained through a reverse mortgage. Whether you own your home free and clear or have a mortgage you may qualify for a reverse mortgage.

Submitted by Linda Lucente, Reverse Mortgage Consultant, Wells Fargo Home Mortgage . Linda may be reached at 610-892-7564 Ext. 15

Question: I had a stroke that affected the use of my right arm. I am right handed, so this has created a huge problem for me when I am bathing, cooking and dressing. Do you have any tips for me?

Answer: Yes. Occupational therapists have lots of ideas to help individuals who have experienced functional losses such as you have. I can give you some broad ideas, but it would be even better if you asked an occupational therapist to make a home visit to perform meet you and determine your specific needs. There are so many ways we can help.

Because every person who has had a stroke is completely different, advice is best given after actually meeting you and evaluating you. Because we have not met, my advice may only be accepted in very general terms. I really don’t know your capabilities or actual losses. Knowing this makes a huge difference in problem solving. Finding the best most effective solutions for you, given the home you live in and the people who also live with you (if any) is best done by determining your skills and abilities and seeing you in your home.

For instance, you indicated the stroke affected your arm or leg, but you did not say how much. Did you lose all of the motion, some of the motion, most of the motion? Did you lose your awareness of touch or temperature? Did you lose your awareness of where your arm or leg is? Sometimes, this occurs with people who have had a stroke. Each answer would determine the specific idea I might suggest.

You did say you are experiencing a huge problem with bathing, cooking and dressing. I don’t exactly know what you mean by “huge”. If you lost some or a lot of the motion in your arm and leg, I would start by suggesting you sit while bathing and dressing. If you are doing meal preparation, sitting might also be a consideration. This will give you some stability, so you can focus on getting the task done while reducing your risk for falling or loss of balance.

If you are having difficulty using your hand and arm, you want to work on finding alternative ways to stabilize objects you want to use. If you normally hold an object with your right hand, you might want to look at how you could stabilize the object between your legs, or against a table, or against parts of your own body. For instance, one such example is using a wash cloth. To wash your non affected left arm and hand, you could place an open wash cloth across your leg, then drag your left arm across the wash cloth.

For bathing and dressing, adaptive devices such as long handled sponges, reachers, long handled dressing sticks, sock aids can be life savers. You can put soap on a rope, to eliminate the worry of dropping it. Soap on a rope can be purchased in stores or made at home by screwing a hole into the soap, then threading a large rope into the hole. You then knot the string, and voila’ you have soap on a rope with your favorite soap! (I have used a screw driver, a bar BQ skewer, an awl, and a long nail to make holes in soap. Be creative! ) The rope can be as long or as short as you like. I usually start with 36 inches of rope. Depending on your height and preferences, the rope could be made longer or shorter, tho!)

There are also one handed shoe lace tying techniques and one handed dressing techniques to put on and remove clothing and bras! There are now elastic shoe laces that can eliminate the need for tying shoes. If you want to buy new shoes, there are now shoes with Velcro enclosures!

For cooking, there are many devices available such as bowls with handles on them, paring boards that can stabilize vegetable or bread so you can peel, dice, cut, or spread. There are terrific one handed jar openers, rocker knives that make cutting possible with only the use of one hand. There are pot holders that will keep your pots on the stove from moving while you are stirring. There are so many other options! Each option is really determined by your set of specific functional and environmental needs.

For more information about occupational therapy, refer to www.aota.org. Each state has a state occupational therapy association that can help you to find a local occupational therapist. Your doctor is also a wonderful resource. There are home health agencies, out-patient rehabilitation clinics and many OT’s who have their own private practice.

I hope you will seek the assistance of an occupational therapist. An OT can really help you to find practical and useful ways of coping with the functional losses you are now facing due to your stroke. For more information, call us at 1-866-SAFE-AGE.

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