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The Changing Face of Senior Care: What Caregivers Need to Know Seniors are living longer than ever before. They are also becoming more proactive when it comes to making decisions that affect the quality of their lives. Here are some ways seniors are trying to stay healthier and happier as they consider many new options. Post a comment to share how you and your senior are dealing with the rapidly changing face of senior care!
1. Staying fit, getting stronger. A recent study shows that exercising may actually protect the body against the aging process. Encourage your senior to walk, swim, dance, or practice yoga or Tai Chi. Even seniors who start exercising later in life reap the benefits, such as suffering from fewer heart attacks or having more energy. Simple balance-enhancing exercises help prevent potentially devastating falls, while yoga stretches build strength and endurance. Let your senior decide what kind of physical activity suits her needs, and then get moving!
2. Eating better, staying healthier. A third of cancer cases could be prevented by avoiding smoking, exercising, and by eating better. It doesn't take much for seniors to stay healthier longer, and they seem to be more willing to make those relatively simple dietary changes. For example, your senior might actually prefer delicious and nutritious sweet potatoes, which are loaded with Vitamins C and A and very low in fat, to artery-clogging french fries if you explain to her why you are serving the healthier option. Put out bowls of refreshing blueberries and strawberries, snacks that can reverse some of the effects of age-related brain decline, instead of fat-saturated candy. Add more potassium to your senior's diet, with foods such as bananas, fat-free yogurt, and orange juice, to offset the harmful effects of sodium and reduce the risk of heart disease!
3. Going on line, knowing your options. Seniors can use online tools to compare costs of hospital stays and tests. They can also go online to find out if they are paying too much for their prescription drugs. For example, brand-name drugs used to treat heart disease often are no better than generics. Your senior may be able to switch to a generic drug or to a drug similar in quality to the one she is using that costs less. She can also use the computer to communicate with her physicians. You might want to investigate new care-management tools, like the Intel Health Guide, that can monitor blood pressure and glucose levels from home and report the data to health professionals. Seniors who are technologically savvy feel less isolated and safer.
4. Better designs, gadgets that help. Adaptive equipment for seniors used to be clunky, ugly, and embarrassing. Not any more! Support bars for toilets can be concealed behind a wall and used only when necessary. A kitchen can include attractive induction cook tops that won't burn if you touch them. Prettily designed night lights in dark hallways and at the top and bottom of stairways can help prevent seniors from falling. Skid-free rugs now come in a range of colors, shapes, and sizes. And a set of large-handle eating utensils, which many seniors find easier to use, can match the pattern of spill-proof dishes!
5. Changing health coverage, making sense. There are many more health care options for seniors than there were a decade ago! And your senior can switch from one health care system to another, if she meets the deadlines. Seniors may think they are locked into their current Medicare health coverage for 2009, but they have until March 31, 2009, to make a change, such as switching from a private health plan (HMO, PPO, etc.) to Medicare, or vice versa. If your senior has questions, contact Medicare (1-800-MEDICARE) for her and ask for the telephone representative to dis-enroll your senior from her private plan. Or you can call your senior's private plan directly to make the change, as long as it's before March 31.
6. Driving safely, staying independent. Often seniors are reluctant to give up driving because they don't want to depend on other people to get around. A new website, http://www.seniordrivers.org, provides tips and info to keep senior driving skills sharp. It includes video clips and tip sheets covering tricky situations seniors might encounter. It also shows how seniors can cope with giving up the car keys and still remain active. And the future looks promising. For example, a new windshield is in the works that uses lasers, infrared sensors, and a camera to help objects stand out that otherwise could go unnoticed. This and other car-related gadgets currently under development will help keep your senior (and others on the road) safer while driving!
7. Finding the right doc, feeling better. The model of health care for seniors, which used to mean going to a doctor for one specific medical problem, has changed dramatically. Now seniors are treated for a variety of conditions, many of them chronic. They need coordinated care and access to a primary doctor who can either figure detect problems, before they require acute and expensive treatment, or send patients to a specialist. Just as important, your senior's physician should be addressing her social needs and issues as well as her medical condition. If the doctor doesn't consider the whole picture, encourage your senior to change to a different one. What if her doctor tells your senior that she needs hospital treatment? Check out "Hospital Compare," www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov, to see how hospitals nationwide are rated, including patient satisfaction information.
8. Leaving a footprint, not the carbon kind. Seniors no longer view themselves as the "invisible generation." They know they have acquired wisdom to impart! Suggest to your senior that she writes (or dictates to you or a family member) a Legacy Letter in which she expresses her hopes and dreams for the world future generations will inherit. Your senior might prefer working on a scrapbook, an oral history, or a compilation of "Words of Wisdom." She can share her own past experiences with friends and family members, providing a valuable contribution to those younger than herself!
Ninety is the new seventy! Danish researchers report that the very old, even those who live to be 100-plus, are increasingly enjoying healthy, independent lives. This is good news for your senior and for you!
Tell us if and how your senior is participating in her care-related decisions by posting a comment.
