Planning for Your Digital Legacy

Change can be daunting at any age, but for seniors, adjusting to a new living environment can be particularly challenging. Whether moving into a retirement community, downsizing to a smaller home, or transitioning to an assisted living facility, the process can evoke a range of emotions and concerns. As caregivers, family members, or friends, it's important to recognize our responsibility to provide support and guidance during this transition period. Here are some valuable tips on how to help a senior adjust to a new living environment.Start with Open Communication: Before the move, engage in open and honest conversations with the senior about their feelings, fears, and expectations regarding the transition. Listen attentively to their concerns and validate their emotions. Reassure them that their feelings are normal and offer your support whenever possible.Familiarize Them with the New Environment: Visit the new living environment together before the move, if possible. Explore the surrounding neighborhood, and introduce them to staff members and fellow residents. Familiarizing them with their new surroundings can alleviate anxiety and make the transition feel less overwhelming.Personalize Their Space: Help personalize their new living space to make it feel more like home. Bring familiar items such as family photos, a favorite comforter, and cherished mementos to decorate their room or apartment. Creating a comfortable and familiar environment can provide a sense of security and belonging.Establish a Routine: Create a sense of normalcy by establishing a daily routine. Consistency and structure can help reduce feelings of uncertainty and anxiety. Set regular meal times, exercise sessions, and leisure activities to provide stability and promote a sense of control over their environment.Encourage Socialization: Gently urge participation in social activities and engagement with other residents or neighbors. Building connections and forming friendships within the community can combat feelings of loneliness and isolation. Attend group events, classes, or outings together to facilitate social interactions and foster a sense of belonging.Provide Emotional Support: Be patient and empathetic as your loved one navigates the challenges of adjusting to their new living environment. Offer emotional support and encouragement, and remind them that it's okay to feel unsettled or homesick initially. Validate their emotions; do not try to talk them out of their feelings.  Reassure them that they are not alone in this transition.Seek Professional Assistance: Professional assistance from a counselor, therapist, or support group specializing in senior transitions can be a helpful resource if coping with the transition becomes too much of a struggle. Professional guidance can often facilitate a smoother adjustment process in new surroundings.Senior Care Authoritys Peace of Mind Program: Our Peace of Mind program eases the stress of the move-in by providing extra support, verifying post-move-in needs and wants, and helps set realistic expectations between the resident, family, and staff. Our Peace of Mind program offers: Weekly visits to your loved one, an engaging activity, guided by family input, communication with care home, senior living community, medical providers, or others on your behalf,  Our experts can provide an extra set of eyes on your loved one. Simply put, we are able to be there when you cannot.Helping an older adult adjust to a new living environment requires compassion and understanding. Remember to be patient, stay involved, and practice self-care along the way. With support and guidance, you can help someone can embrace their new living environment and thrive in this next chapter of their journey. Senior Care Authority experts are here to help. You dont have to do this alone.

What We Dont Know We Dont Know in Health Care: September 24, 2024 -Oral Care, Monitored Meals, and Aspiration PneumoniaProper oral care is crucial for maintaining optimal health. Keeping the mouth clean not only helps maintain the protective properties of saliva but also reduces bacteria in the mouth which can be a source of infection in aspiration pneumonia. In addition, monitoring meals and assisting with feeding for those at high risk for aspiration is also a necessity. The process of swallowing involves dozens of muscles that start in the mouth and include the pharynx, larynx, and esophagus. These muscles can become weakened with age and from various, often age-related diseases.  The aging population is especially at risk for aspiration pneumonia due to comorbidities, frailty, and conditions that can impair swallowing.  As a result, aspiration pneumonia is one of the leading causes of death from infection in individuals over the age of 65. One study shows that 1 in 10 deaths from pneumonia in elderly nursing home residents may be prevented by improving oral hygiene (Sjogren et al., 2008). Unfortunately, proper oral care and monitoring of meals is often overlooked in the health care setting.  Perhaps the greatest reason for this is the challenge that almost every health facility faces today: adequate staffing. When I started working in acute care as an RN over 20 years ago, nursing assistants (these are the staff generally responsible for proving oral care in an acute care setting) were typically responsible for 5-7 patients. Nurses had 3-5 patients (this was on a step down cardiac unit). Between the nurse and the assistant, we were able to provide oral care at every meal and offer one-on-one assistance to any patient that was at risk for aspiration. This is no longer the case.  RNs oftentimes look after upwards of 8 patients, and there is generally either no nursing assistant on the floor or only 1 for a patient load that can exceed 20.  Consequently, proper oral care is neglected.  I have often seen patients that are aspirating during meals, but do not have adequate staffing on hand to provide them with the supervision and monitoring that they need. This presents a hazardous catch-22: the aging individual needs to eat to maintain nutritional needs yet he/she needs assistance with eating to prevent aspirating pneumonia.   How can this be remedied? If the family is present, they can provide oral care and meal monitoring. If meal monitoring is required for an at-risk individual, its recommended to touch base with the health care team to inquire as to what the specific aspiration precautions are (every individual may have a different need and/or recommendation). A care companion can also be hired to provide the needed care. I hired a companion for my father when he was in a skilled nursing facility. He was not getting his teeth brushed or flossed regularly, and I was seeing a decline in his dentition. Having this extra support provided him with much needed assistance and the care companion had the added benefit of encouraging him to eat more at every meal, something that was a bonus as he was not meeting his nutrient needs. Touching base with staff to request that oral care and meal monitoring be done can also be helpful. Having an advocate to ensure necessary care is getting done can also be very effective in the health care setting.  What is proper oral care and effective meal monitoring?  Proper oral care includes brushing the teeth for at least 1 minute after every meal. It also includes using a soft bristle brush, fluoride toothpaste, flossing daily. A final component of oral care that is often not discussed is denture care. Dentures should be cleaned at least once per day and removed at bedtime. Removing them prior to sleeping can greatly reduce the risk of pneumonia (Iinuma et al. 2014). Effective meal monitoring includes adequate supervision during mealtime for those at risk of aspiration. Such supervision includes ensuring the individual is properly positioned for a meal (head of bed as high as can be tolerated and supine position), takes small bites, eats slowly, swallows a couple times in between each bite, and intermittently takes a sip of liquid to clear the mouth of food particles. The use of straws is generally not recommended for an individual at risk for aspiration as it propels the food to the back of the throat and hence can increase risk. I recall when I was working as a Registered Nurse (RN) in acute care that I was constantly removing straws from the bedside of at risk individuals and often reminding them to eat slowly and swallow at least twice between each bite to ensure food clearance. Individuals at risk for aspiration often require a modified texture diet as it can further prevent the aspiration of food and liquids.   This is a brief summary of the attention to detail needed in addressing oral hygiene and meal monitoring amongst the aging population. Both measures can play a significant role in reducing aspiration pneumonia.  If you would like more information on understanding proper oral care or any other questions that you may have regarding aging life care, please feel free to reach out to me.    Sources:1.      Sjogren P, Nilsson E, Forsell M, Johansson O, Hoogstraate J. 2008. A systematic review of the preventive effect of oral hygiene on pneumonia and respiratory tract infection in elderly people in hospitals and nursing homes: effect estimates and methodological quality of randomized controlled trials. J Am Geriatr Soc. 56:21242130. 2.      Iinuma T, Arai Y, Abe Y, Takayama M, Fukumoto M, Fukui Y, et al. 2014. Denture wearing during sleep doubles the risk of pneumonia in the very elderly. J Dent Res. doi: 10.1177/0022034514552493 3.      F Muller, 2015. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4541086/#   

By the time you read this, the reported deaths from COVID-19 and its variants in the U.S. will be close to 900,000. As staggering as that statistic is, its 400,000 short of the number of Americans killed by Heart Disease in the same time period. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for men and women of most racial and ethnic groups.Lets not allow the topic to overwhelm the fact theres a miracle inside your chest. Weighing about as much as a grapefruit, the heart is a powerful pump that drives five to six quarts of blood to every microscopic part of your body every second. And if it fails for even a second, the body is very unforgiving. Even though its the one piece of machinery driven by the brain, we tend to treat the heart like a kitchen appliance that we take for granted. Rarely serviced, rarely cleaned, and overworked until it burns out. Although heart bypass and transplant have become routine since the pioneering operations in the 1960s, its not like replacing the coffee maker you neglected too long. One Thing at a TimeThe better way to treat your heart with the respect it deserves is to start with changing just small habits. That way, youll avoid the relapse from trying to change everything at once and falling back to unhealthy heart habits inside of a month. The most obvious: if youre a smoker or heavy drinker, work on that first. Imagine a small team of remodelers arriving at your heart to do a makeover. The first thing theyre going to say is, Well, we cant do anything with the plumbing until we clear the smoke. Look for Help During Heart MonthQuitting smoking and reducing alcohol is never easy, but this is probably as good a time as any during the year to start a cessation program with help. February is American Heart Month, so youre likely to be reminded frequently of heart health and offered tips on modifying your routine to help your heart and prolong a happy life. If you only look to one place, trust the American Heart Association  www.heart.org. Prediabetes and Heart DiseaseWhats your blood sugar level? If you dont know, you should find out from your doctor if youre not already monitoring it yourself. You could be pre-diabetic without knowing it or showing any symptoms. Theres a good chance you could avoid becoming diabetic and reverse your pre-diabetic blood sugar to normal with relatively little change to your diet and a slight increase inyour activity. Diabetes has long been linked to heart disease, but recent studies suggest that reversing prediabetes is also linked to fewer heart attacks and strokes. [Reversing Prediabetes linked to fewer heart attacks, strokes, heart.org, Jan. 26, 2021.]While youre at it, get your cholesterol tested and routinely monitor your blood pressure.If youre worried you might be at risk for heart disease, ask your doctor to perform a simple cholesterol test to let you know if youre at risk and should adjust your diet. Home blood pressure monitors are not expensive, theyre digital, and theyre easy to use. Blood pressure stations are common in supermarkets now, and you can also check your weight and pulse. Womens Heart HealthWhy the emphasis on womens heart health? The American Heart Association tells us that cardiovascular disease is the No. 1 killer of women, causing 1 in 3 deaths each year about one woman every minute. They devote an entire website to womens heart health: Go Red for Women (www.goredforwomen.org). Here are just a few of the common misconceptions about womens heart health:Myth: Heart disease is for men, and cancer is the real threat for womenFact: Heart disease is a killer that strikes more women than men and is more deadly than all cancer forms combined. While one in 31 American women dies from breast cancer each year, heart disease is the cause of one out of every three deaths.Myth: Heart disease is for old peopleFact: Heart disease affects women of all ages. For younger women, the combination of birth control pills and smoking boosts heart disease risks by 20 percent. Heart defects are more common than you might think: 1.3 million Americans alive today have some form of congenital heart defect and at least nine of every 1,000 infants born each year have a heart defect. Even if you live a completely healthy lifestyle, being born with an underlying heart condition can be a risk factor.Myth: I run marathons no way I could be at risk.Fact: Factors like cholesterol, eating habits, and smoking can counterbalance your other healthy habits. You can be thin and have high cholesterol. The American Heart Association says to start getting your cholesterol checked at age 20. Earlier, if your family has a history of heart disease. Age and Heart HealthMany things, like wine and most people, grow better with age. The heart, however, takes more tending than a glass of fine wine. Avoid things that weaken your heart beyond the normal aging process. These are the usual suspects: smoking and tobacco use, lack of exercise, diet, alcohol, overeating, and stress. Some preexisting conditions you cant control: irregular heartbeat, congenital (inherited) heart defects, sleep apnea (although this may be a product of obesity or alcohol consumption).Viruses and MyocarditisMyocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle mostly caused by a virus, including COVID-19, and can lead to left-sided heart failure. The left ventricle of the heart is the part that pumps oxygen-rich blood back to the body. This valve tends to stiffen with age. Thats one of the many reasons why age combined with a preexisting condition puts you at greater risk of death from COVID-19. Even survivors of the novel coronavirus infection can sustain permanent heart damage. All people must protect themselves and others from COVID-19 by observing precautions, not just because of its immediate lethality but also because of its impact on the heart, known and unknown. How to Start with Your HeartThe factors involved in heart health and the onset of heart disease are many, varied, and complicated. But the common preventions (listed here, from the Mayo Clinic) are simple. You probably already know them by heart, so to speak:Not smokingControlling certain conditions, such as high blood pressure and diabetesStaying physically activeEating healthy foodsMaintaining a healthy weightReducing and managing stress Those may seem like six significant challenges, especially if you take on all six. But you should notice something else about them. Almost every one of them can affect the other five. So, if you pick one, youll find it easier to take on the next one. People who quit smoking usually discover that they have more energy within the first week, and exercise becomes easier. A little exercise and switching out one unhealthy food will help with weight, stress, blood pressure, and diabetes. Easy does it, especially if youre 65 and older. Youve spent a whole life learning one way. You can take your time. Learn to enjoy your healthier heart. But start today.First, Get a Checkup!Most of the questions this article has raised in your mind (Whats my blood sugar level? Whats my blood pressure? I used to smoke am I at risk?) can all be answered in a single doctors visit with simple lab work done a few days before. Schedule it now, before you start a program of exercise and diet. And schedule a regular exam per your doctors recommendation. Relieving the stress of not knowing will be a good start on your way to a healthier heart.