With summer showing its signs all around us – barbeques, pool parties, and most importantly, heat waves—it is crucial to keep our health in mind in order to survive these scorching months. Read the following New York Times article to learn how to stay hydrated!
-Dr.Kathy Johnson, PhD, CMC
As we get older, many of us are concerned about remaining mobile and independent. A lot of this depends on our ability to drive, and to drive safely at that. A recent study conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety showed that many of today’s seniors are working on being safer drivers. While seniors are holding onto their licenses even longer these days, their accountability in fatal crashes has dropped 37 percent. Many people are confused about why this is, but the study suggests that it might be because “they [seniors] really care about this, and while their physical skills are deteriorating, they’re smart about making necessary adjustments to achieve their goals.” Senior Vice President of AARP Elinor Ginzler also stated that we are living in a time of many new distractions, such as cell phones and DVD players, and that “the attentiveness and judgment of older drivers should reassure other drivers on the roadways.” So keep up the good work, drivers!
Looking to plan a vacation with your grandchildren? This AARP article gives some great advice on what not to do on vacation with your family, and tips for how to make your trip a success for everyone involved.
The incredulous ability of exercise to reduce a person’s risk of heart problems has left scientists scratching their heads for many years. However, a new study conducted by Harvard University may help scientists understand this phenomenon. Read more on this study here!
-Dr.Kathy Johnson, PhD, CMC
With many of us Boomers now looking towards retirement and senior-citizenship, the question of how to remain financially independent is on everyone’s mind. Depending on your age, the answer is different.
Younger Boomers in their 40s and 50s still have the opportunity to educate themselves about how to pay for those later years, while older boomers must figure out what to do now that they are living those later years.
A recent study conducted by Jeff Faust, a specialist for Allianz Life, showed that 61% of the study’s 3,200 participants feared outliving their income “more than they feared death.” Clearly, this is a real concern for many people. However, with over 78 million Boomers, financial specialists don’t have all the answers.
Jan Yager, Ph.D. from Consumer Affairs attempts to aid Boomers with her “7 Steps to Avoid Out-Living Your Money”:
>> Keep working
>> Be more frugal
>> Pay off debt and avoid new debt
>> Downsize or relocate
>> Stay healthy
>> Consult an attorney about asset protection
>> Consider long term care insurance
While there are many Boomers with all different kinds of financial situations, Dr. Drummond Osmond, a financial advisor, often finds that everyone’s concerns are the same. Therefore, Osmond urges his clients to have a healthy relationship with their money, and to think about how they want to live before thinking about how much money they want to have.
In the end, no matter who you are, experts stress the importance of planning and being prepared in order to avoid outliving your money.
Readmission into the hospital after surgery or another procedure is extremely common, costly and time consuming. Since it is one of our main priorities to keep our clients healthy and living at home rather than in the hospital, I wanted to share this article from The New York Times as it provides great tips for hospital checkout and avoiding readmission.
In 2009,The New England Journal of Medicine reported “one in five Medicare patients returns to the hospital within 30 days of being discharged.” Dr. Mark V. Williams, who worked on this study, suggests that part of the issue is due to the fact that doctors place much of their focus on the admission process, when the patient is most sick. When the patient leaves the hospital, they often have more medications and treatments to worry about than when they first entered. Some doctors suggest that this problem may also occur because it may benefit the hospital financially for patients to be readmitted.
Dr. Eric A. Coleman, professor of medicine at the University of Colorado Denver, has developed a program called Care Transitions Intervention to help seniors take initiative in their care after leaving the hospital. The steps of the program include taking charge of your care, checking the medication list for errors, making a comprehendible discharge plan and contacting your primary physician if you have any questions or concerns. To further help the cause, some medical centers are providing financial incentives for lowering readmission rates and are providing guidance for improving the discharge process.
-Dr.Kathy Johnson, PhD, CMC
With the number of dementia patients growing everyday, it’s important to think about how we can keep our brains active and sharp by any means possible. With that in mind, neurolinguistics professor Holly Bardutz of the University of Regina decided to teach a Brain Fitness and Enrichment class at the university for 32 students, ages 50 to 90. In order to avoid memory loss and general slowdown, Bardutz stresses variety. In addition to strategies like Sodoku puzzles, Bardutz’s patients take part in activities such as figurine painting, ball-throwing, and writing exercises.
While Bardutz cannot guarantee that her methods can ward off Alzheimer’s disease and dementia, she does have scientific reason to believe they can help. “As long as you are requiring new brain cells, you will make new brain cells,” she states, as learned in a recent study. Bardutz focuses on challenging her students, as she finds it beneficial for them to continue to learn new things, which require brain reinforcement. Most of all, Bardutz wants her students to be socially interacting with one another. “In order to keep the brain functioning and fit and healthy, there has to be a socialization part,” she says, “And it has to be fun.”
Click here to read an interesting article from AARP about the healing power of several common and easy-to-grow herbs, including peppermint, rosemary, and sage, along with tips and instructions on how to grow them.
Want a change of scenery? Great article on AARP.com that talks about the top five places to live in the U.S. and why.
-Dr.Kathy Johnson, PhD, CMC
When David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., discovered he had a brain tumor, he was forced to reevaluate conventional cancer-beating methods and dig deep for something new and promising. Schreiber decided to take a deeper look into what factors cause cancer and how it can be prevented.
From his research he realized that all of us have cancer cells within our bodies and it is our own protective systems that keep two thirds of the population cancer-free. For the other one-third of the population that will most likely get cancer, however, Schreiber writes that we must protect our immune systems in order to make it harder for those cancer cells to take over the body. Some of these prevention techniques include lifestyle changes such as more exercise and stress-reducing activities such as breathing exercises.
Schreiber identified several behaviors that could help fight cancer that one might not have guessed would help battle this disease.
-Avoid refined sugar
-Add spicy foods to your diet
-Exercise regularly
-Practice yoga and mindful meditation
-Avoid household toxins like Teflon
Although Schreiber has been living with cancer for 16 years he feels much happier and healthier after his lifestyle change.
