Tag Archives: Home Health Care

Home Health Care New Jersey – Exercise Can Slow Alzheimer’s

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New Jersey’s Expert Home Care for Elders and Seniors provides home health care for your aging loved ones since 1984. Please call us when your loved one needs help – 800-848-2336.

Use it or lose it?  Evidence points to exercise as possibly slowing Alzheimer’s.

Exercising the body helps the brain. That’s the conclusion of a new study that reviewed the effects of exercise on brain functioning in humans and animals.

Based on a wide-ranging review of existing studies, researchers found a significant relationship between physical activity and later cognitive function and decreased occurrence of dementia. Better yet, the evidence suggests that the benefits may last several decades.

Studies of persons over age 65 found that those who exercised for at least 15-30 minutes at a time three times a week were less likely to develop Alzheimer’s Disease, even if they were genetically predisposed to the disease.

The exercise doesn’t have to be strenuous. One study of 62- to 70-year-olds who continued to work and retirees who moderately exercised, showed they had higher sustained levels of cerebral blood flow and superior performance on general measures of cognition as compared to the group of inactive retirees.

The review covered 40 years of research.

NJ Home health care – Elder Care Help for Boomer’s

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Do You Remember…when? Expert Home Care New Jersey shares with our readers a walk down memory lane!  If you need help caring for an aging parent, call us at 800-848-2336.

According to conventional wisdom, people who were kids in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, or even maybe the early ’70s probably shouldn’t have survived.

Remember how:

  • Our baby cribs were covered with brightly colored, lead-based paint.
  • We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets. And there was nothing to stop us from sticking a fork in an electrical outlet.
  • As children, we rode our bikes, we had no helmets. And we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. 
  • Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was a special treat.
  • We drank water from dirty garden hoses — not from bottles. Oh the horrors!
  • We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from it.
  • We spent hours building go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.
  • We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?
  • We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it — or punch harder next time.
  • We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and mud pies. And contrary to what we were told, we didn’t put out very many eyes and the worms didn’t live inside us forever.
  • You’re more resilient than you thought. Congratulations for having survived! 

September is Healthy Aging Month – NJ Elder Home Health

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September is Healthy Aging Month – Because there’s lots of living left to do…

Visit Healthy Aging often for quality healthy aging information – September is an annual observance month designed to focus national attention on the positive aspects of growing older.
http://www.healthyaging.net/index.htm

Healthy Food – for those who want to age healthfully and enjoy good food.

How many times do you think.. yuk, healthy food? It gives the connotation that healthy food is bland and flavorless.. rather than thinking it is better for us. Healthy food can inspire us and motivate us to cook with exciting, great tasting recipes that please our palate! For healthy eating recipes and more, go to healthyagingfood.com. http://www.healthyagingfood.com/

In addition to eating healthy habits is adding more activity and exercise into one’s daily routine. New Jersey Seniors know it’s good for us but avoid it like the plague. The reasons being we are familiar with being sedentary or afraid that exercise has to be vigorous and painful to be worth the effort given.

But what is beneficial to know is movement is movement -  the more you do, the healthier you’ll be. Even doing moderate activities like chores, gardening and walking can make a big stride in gaining a healthy body.

Just adding a little movement to your life can:

Reduce the risk of stroke, diabetes & heart disease

Have a positive effect on our joint stability

Improve range of movement

Maintain flexibility

Help maintain bone mass

Prevent osteoporosis and fractures

Improve our mood and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression

Enhance self esteem which makes us happier people

Increase and improve memory in elderly people

Reduce stress

Even the small changes, adding movement to your day, and adjusting to a more modest weight, you will gain many benefits. One study exists that shows just a 10% weight reduction helps obese patients to reduce blood pressure, cholesterol and increase longevity.

For help when caring for an aging relative at home go to Expert Home Care and call 800-848-2336.

Home Health for NJ Elders & Seniors – Respite Care

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The Family Caregiver Alliance offers good information to families across America when dealing with elder care. Visit their site often at Family Caregiver Alliance.

Caring for aging parents or ill relatives brings out the good and the bad in sibling and family relationships. Caregiving can be a time for siblings to come together and provide support for each other or it can be a time for stressful transition, causing strained connections and painful conflict.

A source of friction between adult children carries the existing legacy of family dynamics. Demands of caregiving bring up old patterns, unresolved issues, and tensions. Old family wounds are reopened and rivalries reemerge. Siblings can find themselves replaying their historical roles in the family, recreating old dynamics of competition and resentment as they vie for mom’s and/or dad’s attention and affection.

Other things arise such as denial over a parent’s condition. Siblings who are unable to accept the reality of a parent’s illness and refuse involvement may be protecting themselves from facing a parent’s eventual death and their own loss. This causes the active family caregivers to react with resentment, bitterness, and anger.

What is seen in families is that discord surfaces from the unequal division of caregiving duties. Usually, it is one adult child or sibling that carries the primary role of caregiving for mom or dad. This may be because he or she lives closest to a parent, is perceived as having less work or fewer family obligations, or is considered the “favorite” child. When this situation occurs, it can lead the overburdened primary caregiver feel frustrated and resentful and other siblings to feel uninformed and left out.

Go to http://www.caregiver.org/caregiver/jsp/content_node.jsp?nodeid=868

For help when caring for an aging relative at home go to Expert Home Care and call 800-848-2336.

Home health care safety – NJ

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Many New Jersey seniors are at risk during the summer’s heat and humidity.  Seniors over the age of 65 in four North American cities revealed that while nearly 90 percent of the respondents were aware a heat warning had been issued, only about half of the people did anything about it.  Many thought the warnings were targeting the NJ elderly, and not them.

To make sure that both you and your elder loved one are safe, here are some important tips:

  • Keep a glass of water in every room for quick access.  Drink plenty of fluids, even if you don’t feel thirsty.
  • Dress in light-weight clothing.  Remove all heavy materials, long sleeves and dark colors from closets. 
  • Stay out of the sun during the hottest times of the day.  Sunburn makes heat dissipation more difficult.
  • Take a nap during high heat times or find a good television program or movie to watch.
  • Keep shades down and blinds pulled. 

Most people know that extreme heat can make us sick. But we may think of heat-related illness as something that only affects people who are overdoing it like overheated marathon runners, professional athletes, or new recruits doing drills on military bases.

But most people who die from heat stroke in the U.S. about 400 every year, and possibly more don’t get it from overexerting themselves on a muggy day. In certain people during high temperatures, it’s all too easy to develop heat stroke while sitting perfectly still on the couch.

Heat stroke occurs when the body is unable to regulate its temperature. The body’s temperature rises rapidly, the sweating mechanism fails, and the body is unable to cool down.

Read the full article: Hot Summer Days Can Make Sick People Sicker.

Call Expert Home Care NJ if your elder needs Home Health Care in New Jersey at 800-848-2336.