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Health Tips for the Holidays

Senior Couple Having Lunch Together At Home

December is the season of sharing, loving, and eating! All the parties and other holiday festivities disrupt daily routines for several weeks. But don’t let these weeks-long celebrations get in the way of making healthy food choices. When everyone seems to be splurging and indulging in all kinds of food, stick to your meal plan. Lowenhill Home Care Services has rounded up five tips for you:

  1. Be mindful of your distance from the food table to outsmart the buffet. Standing next to the food table spread would only make it easier for you to reach out for the food. Keep your distance to prevent yourself from mindlessly reaching out for food as you socialize.
  2. Don’t deprive yourself but only choose the food that you don’t normally get to eat all throughout the year. Savor every small portion and make sure that you include it in your meal plan count.
  3. Keep moving; don’t forget to include physical activities—this is your secret weapon to reduce stress and compensate for the excess food you had. Take a walk with family and friends after meals to burn those calories.
  4. Sleep well and right. Parties and celebrations mean staying out late and cutting back on sleep. Sleep deprivation may cause you to eat more and go for high-fat, high-sugar food. So, do get the recommended amount of sleep every night to prevent you from mindless and overeating.
  5. Remember what really matters. Spending quality time with your family and friends is what this season is really all about. Focus on creating fond memories filled with love and joy with your loved ones.

At Lowenhill Home Care Services, we care about you and the choices you make. What other healthy choices do you make during the holidays? Share them with us!

Keeping Up with Routines During the Holidays

seniors having fun with caregivers

The holidays are finally upon us and with the season comes a lot of hustle and bustle in preparation for family gatherings, last-minute gift shopping, and cooking. Tradition is one of the most important parts of the festivities, especially for seniors who have been doing them for a long time. However, with the busyness of the season, it may get difficult for them to keep up with their medical and health needs.

Lowenhill Home Care Services can help seniors maintain proper routine and protocol, even during the holiday season!

Many seniors’ health routines can be disrupted to accommodate holiday events and others, causing them stress and other negative symptoms.

Our caregivers are trained to keep your loved one’s care needs as their top priority. This may sound like a very simple task; however, it is very crucial to keeping your senior in a healthy state. When seniors are out and about more than they usually are over the holidays, chances are they may not be able to take their medication at the right time or even at all.

When on the road, nutrition and hydration can also vary from what your loved one is used to.

Having a caregiver that can work closely with your senior can ensure that their needs are met and adapted to properly.

Get quality home care services by contacting our office here and setting up an appointment.

We would be happy to help you with what you need.

Alzheimer’s Disease: Causes and Risk Factors

a woman helping senior lady holding her hands

There is no one factor that has been proven to cause Alzheimer’s disease. However, scientists have pointed out several risk factors that likely pave the way for the disease and henceforth helps it progress. If present, these risk factors might give a greater chance for a senior to develop the disease.

For instance, a study published in the year 2010 in the medical journal of Neurology reported that Type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance can increase the likelihood of a patient to develop plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The National Institute of Aging (NIA) reports that a family history of Alzheimer’s disease does not necessarily mean a person will definitely acquire the disease, however, it may mean that the person has a higher chance of having it. According to researchers, having one form of the apolipoprotein E (APOE) gene on chromosome 19 does increase a person’s risk, according to the National Institute on Aging.

Risk factors may include: aging, family history, genetics, cardiovascular problems, such as heart disease, stroke or high blood pressure, metabolic conditions, such as Type 2 diabetes or high cholesterol, head injury, obesity, poor eating or exercising habits, lack of mental activity, smoking, and drinking too much alcohol.

Don’t settle for less and risk compromising your elderly loved ones’ health! Lowenhill Home Care Services is a skilled and trustworthy provider who truly cares for you. Call us at 724-788-1072 today!

The Negative Effects of Ageism in Senior Care Communities

Woman looking after sick senior man

According to Galfandberger, ageism is “prejudice and discrimination against someone because of how old they are.” When doctors misguidedly profile patients who are 65 years or older, it puts them at a much greater risk for unsafe medication side effects, medical misdiagnoses, and unnecessary tests and treatments.

DID YOU KNOW?
Adults ages 65 and older see doctors on average twelve times per year, and nearly 80 percent see a primary clinician at least once per year (Davis et al., 2011).

A senior care provider’s knowledge and attitudes about aging can alter how accurately and sensitively they identify normal changes connected with aging from acute and chronic illnesses. According to Kane, Ouslander, and Abrass (2004) ageism can take the form of a provider dismissing treatable pathology as a feature of old age or treating expected changes of aging as though they were diseases.

This explains the growing need for more providers with geriatrics expertise. However, according to research, many physicians-in-training come to view the care of older adults as irritating, uninteresting, and overall, less rewarding. Most trainees’ attitudes are further forged by the continuous misconceptions that older patients are demented, frail, and somehow unsalvageable.

Choose a skilled and trustworthy provider like Lowenhill Home Care Services today by calling us at 724-788-1072.

Our caregivers ensure that the services and treatments that we provide for those under our care are appropriate and safe for their individual conditions. Do not settle for less than what your loved one deserves!

How a Vegan or Vegetarian Diets May Stop Heart Disease but Increase Stroke Risk

different vegetables

Diets that require a person to avoid either meat or all animal products get a lot of attention for being healthy and for contributing to weight loss. However, there may be a catch to these diets: a higher risk for a certain type of stroke.

According to a study published in the BMJ in September 2019, researchers observed that people who did not consume meat had a 22% lower risk of coronary artery disease but concurrently had a 20% increased risk of experiencing a hemorrhagic stroke. In addition to that, pescatarians, those who eat fish but not other red meats, showed the same risks of stroke but a 13% lower risk for heart disease compared to meat-eaters.

To achieve these results, the researchers followed 48,000 people in Great Britain for nearly 18 years.

Lead researcher Tammy Tong, a nutritional epidemiologist at the Nuffield Department of Population Health at the University of Oxford in England reports that their findings “indicate that the vegetarians had higher stroke risk than meat-eaters, mostly due to a subtype of stroke called hemorrhagic stroke that is related to bleeding in the brain.”

The study didn’t, however, determine why it was such, but past research offers a clue: Nutrient deficiencies common among non-meat-eaters may be connected to a higher risk for hemorrhagic stroke.

“A low cholesterol level is known to be protective against heart disease and ischemic stroke,” Dr. Tong added, “but some recent evidence suggests that low cholesterol may be linked to a higher risk of hemorrhagic stroke, the subtype of stroke found to be higher in the vegetarians.”

Make Daily Activities Easier for Your Joints

group of senior smiling

Having arthritis and other conditions can make tasks like getting out of bed or standing up from a chair difficult to do. Monica Bozeman McClain, OTR, an occupational therapist at Methodist Dallas Medical Center in Texas suggests that older adults focus on two things: 1.) energy conservation and 2.) joint protection.

With these two in mind, McClain suggests that seniors experiencing arthritis do the following things, to help ease joint tension:

  1. Consider getting out of bed slowly. Nice and easy helps you work out the cricks you get from sleeping and makes it less painful for you to get up.
  2. Get a toothbrush with a fatter handle. Since arthritis often manifests in the hands, it can be a pain for seniors to try and clutch normal-sized toothbrush handles. A looser grip will feel less uncomfortable.
  3. Switch to using adaptive devices in your house and in your car. There are tons of adaptive devices on the market nowadays that can help seniors with everyday things, from sitting, standing and other things that they may find difficult to do without assistance.
  4. Finally, keep the items that you often use nearby. If you see that it is something you need daily, make sure that it’s not too far away. This lessens your need to get up and put more pressure on your bones.

It’s essential that you take care of your joints when you have arthritis. Although, if the pain is unbearable or worsens, you may want to consult your healthcare team about what you can do to better manage it.

Our Mission Statement

Lowenhill Home Care Services strives to provide individually focused home and community based services that achieves best practice and quality care for participant and family satisfaction. It is our mission to provide you with all of the quality non-medical in-home care that you and your family need.

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Contact Information

It will be such a pleasure to hear from you. Send a message online or give us a call.

P.O. Box 456 Aliquippa, PA 15001-3711
Phone: 724-788-1072 Ext. 1 Fax:      724-788-1171 Email: barb@lowenhill.com

Web: www.lowenhill.com

LHCS OHIO

1200 East Market Street Akron OH, 44305
Phone: 330-946-8191 Fax: 330-946-8193