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Emergency Planning Imperative for Older Adults

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Natural disasters, such as a tornado, flood, or blizzard, may force you to evacuate your home or shelter-in-place with little notice. It is important to have an emergency plan in place.   Older adults may face extra challenges during an emergency depending on mobility, chronic health conditions, hearing or vision loss, or even cognitive impairment.   Access to family and friends may be interrupted.   Support services that are usually available may be unavailable. Emergency planning is imperative for older adults. Creating a Plan with a Little Help from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Designate a contact person who will check on you during a disaster.   Consider speaking with your neighbors about developing a check-on-your-neighbor emergency initiative.   Create a list of emergency contacts for family and friends. Leave a copy by your phone(s) and include one in your Emergency Supply Kit.   Emergency supply kits should include a first aid kit, ba
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Three Simple Freeze Warning Tips for Your Home

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  When temperatures are forecast to be below 32 ° F, water pipes can freeze, burst, and cause a great deal of damage. Help protect your home by taking these three steps during a freeze: 1) Let your faucets drip! Run both hot and cold water in a very fine stream in each of your faucets: kitchen sink, bathroom sinks, bathtubs, showers, etc. 2) Open your cupboards! Leave the cabinet doors under all sinks open so that the pipes will be ventilated with warm air. Leaving the bathroom and kitchen doors open helps too. 3) Heat your home! If you leave for the day or an extended period, do not turn the heat completely off. Turn it on, set to the lowest setting you wish (60 ° is recommended).
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Caring for Older Adults with Heart Disease

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February is Heart Health Month!  Make a difference in your community by helping spread the word about strategies for preventing heart disease and encouraging people to live heart healthy lives. Caregivers are faced with the daunting challenge of providing direction, advice, encouragement and support for loved ones managing heart disease.    Managing heart disease is a scary proposition for everyone involved because the risks are great.    In addition, the tasks of learning to recognize symptoms, manage medications and make the necessary lifestyle changes can be downright overwhelming.    It’s no wonder fear and anxiety often crop up making caring for someone with heart disease difficult.   Being anxious is a normal response to heart disease or an acute episode like a heart attack.    Reassure your loved one that making the recommended lifestyle changes and taking medicines regularly and as prescribed will greatly increase the likelihood that he or she will be okay.   Other tips to redu
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Age Safer at Home

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       Some families are contemplating removing their elderly loved ones from senior living communities as we approach what may be the second wave of COVID-19.        It is well documented that risk factors associated with COVID-19 increase with age.  John Hopkins Medicine reports that adults 60 and older, especially those with preexisting medical conditions, in particular heart disease, lung disease, diabetes or cancer, are more likely to have severe – even deadly - coronavirus infection than other age groups.         Assisted living and nursing home facilities will be forced to limit or maybe even ban visitation if the COVID-19 numbers continue to rise.   Senior living facilities are undoubtedly doing their best to safeguard at-risk residents and curb outbreaks.        But visitation restrictions come with their own set of challenges.  Loneliness has been linked to depression, poor sleep quality and impaired cardiovascular function.  A 2016 study by researchers at Newcastle Universit
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Telemedicine Is Transforming Senior Care In Dayton, Ohio

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  Telehealth is quick, easy, affordable, and crazy convenient.   It allows you to connect to your physician or a medical professional through a landline, cellphone, tablet or laptop.   Simply put, it’s a way of delivering and receiving healthcare remotely by means of telecommunications.   It can be used to assess, diagnose and treat from afar.     Now you can skip the trip to the doctor’s office when you need medical attention for routine, non-emergency care, prescriptions or refills.   Telemedicine is effective for acute needs like a sore throat or a rash, and for help monitoring and managing chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, asthma, and arthritis.   Often allowing 24/7 virtual access, telemedicine is quickly becoming highly favored not only among seniors, but also by senior healthcare providers.   Capital Health Care Network (CHCN), a family owned and operated company in Dayton, Ohio, uses telehealth services across their continuum to help seniors stay out of the
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Five Steps for Better Sun Safety

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  Summer is winding down but UV rays and heat may still pose a danger for seniors.  Below are five precautionary steps seniors can take to improve their safety during the remainder of the warmer temperatures.  1.        Stay Hydrated:  Drink 6 to 8 glasses of water per day.  By the time you feel thirsty, your body is already dehydrated.  For seniors, the feeling of thirst decreases with age so be sure  to increase your water intake with prolonged physical activity. 2.       Use your air conditioning:  Some seniors are hesitant  to turn on their AC because of the increased cost but your  health is worth it.   During a heat wave, if you don’t have AC,  spend time at locations with AC like a senior center or           mov ie theater. 3.       Be an early bird or night owl:  The sun and heat are  strongest between 10 am and 4 pm.   Limit your outdoor  activity to early morning and/or late evening when  temperatures are not as high.   4.       Know your medications:  Many seniors
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Stop Loneliness from Ruling the Day

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Can you cure deep-down, black, bottom-of-the-well, no-hope, end-of-the-world, what's-the-use loneliness? That's a question Peanut's Charlie Brown once asked Lucy.    Lucy’s cavalier response was that she could cure anything for a nickel.   It feels like the whole world, especially older adults living alone or in long-term care settings, could use Lucy’s nickel right about now.   This pandemic, also known as COVID-19, is fueling loneliness in epidemic proportions.   Visitation restrictions in healthcare settings and the need to continue practicing social distancing have many of us feeling isolated.   Feeling disconnected from the people we count on creates stress which can result in sleeplessness, depression, higher blood pressure, inflammation, weakened immunity, and a long list of other detriments .   Visit Centers for Disease Control and Prevention   to learn more about the health risks associated with social isolation and loneliness.    We, at Capital Hea
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