Showing posts with label Balanced Care Method. Show all posts

Thursday, September 15, 2011

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When times are tough it's easy to expect the worst. But a positive attitude benefits your health, your happiness -- and your productivity.

Research shows that having a positive attitude can make a huge difference in promoting better health and an improved sense of well-being — which in turn can lead to improved confidence and productivity.

And while optimists are often accused of oversimplifying or being unrealistic, the Mayo Clinic says that people who tend to view situations in a positive light experience a higher level of both physical and mental functioning than their pessimist counterparts.

Optimists, for example, have:

- Greater resistance to catching the common cold

- Reduced risk of coronary artery disease

- Easier breathing if you have certain lung diseases, such as emphysema

- Better coping skills during hardships

- Less negative stress

Further, studies have found that optimistic people decreased their risk of early death by a full 50 per cent compared to those who were more pessimistic. (For more, see Will your personality determine how long you live?)

Retrain the brain

If you’re not a natural optimist, can you change the way you think — and become more upbeat? Experts say yes, that with practice, people can basically retrain their brains to think more positively. Mainly this has to do with monitoring — and changing, if necessary — the ’self-talk’ or the automatic stream of thoughts that runs through your head, endlessly, every day. These thoughts can be either negative or positive, and can be based on logic or on misconceptions and lack of information.

According to the Mayo Clinic, some common forms of negative self-talk include:

Filtering. This happens when you magnify the negative aspects of a situation and filter out all of the positive ones. For example, after a fantastically productive day at work, you suddenly realize you forgot one task – and it is this task you focus on instead of the ones you did accomplish.

Personalizing. In this case, when something bad occurs, you automatically blame yourself. Did your company lose an important account? You think it must be entirely your fault — when in reality other factors came into play.

Catastrophizing. This happens when you automatically anticipate the worst in any given situation. Your boss asks to see you? It must be bad news.

Polarizing. In this instance there is no middle ground: You view things as either good or bad, black or white. You feel that you have to be perfect or that you’re a total failure.

Silence the internal critic

Instead of automatically giving in to them, challenge your negative thoughts. You can weed out negative self-talk by replacing thoughts that are based on irrational thinking with rational, positive ones. For example, if you’re feeling out of the loop at the office, instead of saying to yourself: “No one bothers to communicate with me”, say instead, “I’ll see if I can open the channels of communication.”

http://www.50plus.com/lifestyle/how-to-become-an-optimist/2021/

Home Care Assistance offers the highest quality 24/7 live-in home care in the Region of Halton (Oakville, Burlington, Halton Hills, and Milton), Region of Peel (Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon), Hamilton and surrounding areas.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Caring for caregivers

By the Numbers
66: Percent of family caregivers who are women
20: Hours of in-home care family caregivers provide each week (often unpaid)
4 to 8: Number of years caring for an Alzheimer’s patient can shorten your life
46: percent of caregivers who are clinically depressed

Roughly 65 million people in the United States are caring for a chronically ill, disabled or elderly family member. The vast majority of these people are also raising kids and holding down full-time jobs and consequently they’re burning out.

“So many caregivers suffer from stress and health issues,” said Susan Baida, 42, co-founder of eCareDiary.com, a website that offers online tools to help caregivers understand the diverse aspects of their duties, including medical legal and financial issues.

Baida’s father-in-law, who had Parkinson’s disease, saw his condition worsen in his early 80s. Baida and her husband, John Mills, took intense care of him the last few years of his life. He died in 2007. Now, Baida’s 92-year-old grandfather is living in a nursing home with dementia.

“My husband and I both have experience in the healthcare and technology fields, and we were stunned at how decentralized the services are. The hospitals don’t talk to the long-term care service providers who don’t talk to the insurance companies. The caregiver becomes the CEO.” -- Susan Baida

To prevent burnout, Dr. Kathy Johnson, founder and chief executive officer of Home Care Assistance, suggests a number of steps caregivers can take to protect their health and stress levels. She recommends that caregivers stay involved in personal hobbies, eat a well-balanced diet, join a caregiver support group, and rotate the caregiving responsibilities (bathing, eating, medication) among family members to vary the duties. If you feel guilty for taking time for yourself, stop. “The best role you can play is that of son, daughter, loved one and to rekindle the original relationship you had with the person you’re caring for. There is no guilt in that,” said Johnson.

To help manage their own health and stress levels, Baida and her husband exercised together. “It got to the point where there was so little time for any focus on ourselves as a couple—we couldn’t take vacations—that exercise was our respite. We would go to the gym and work off our stress and anger.” Baida’s husband also sought counseling, which turned out to be a saving grace. “I couldn’t be his sounding board because I wasn’t a neutral party,” Baida said.

Diane Kelley, 55, a resident of Germantown, is caring for her parents, both in their early 80s, who live on Lake Winnepesaukee in New Hampshire. Kelley made the nine-hour trip once a month this past summer after she noticed her mom and dad, who both suffer forms of dementia, struggled to manage their daily activities. She called them daily until it became too much. “I was trying to coordinate their medical care, their calendars, and help them with their meds.” Her parents would get confused and often forgot the conversations Kelley had had with them just the day before. Kelley solicited the help of her siblings and her parents’ grandchildren. This winter, the family came to a mutually agreeable decision to put Kelley’s parents in a temporary care facility.

Now, Kelley wishes she had talked about long-term care issues with her parents in the past, when they were able to make rational decisions. Baida thinks that’s a good idea. “If there is a history of stroke or heart disease in your family, ask your parents what their wishes would be if they were afflicted,” Baida said. And get legal documents in order. Called advanced directives, the documents allow people to dictate who they want to be in charge of their health care if they become physically or mentally incapacitated, and allows people to choose what life-sustaining measures they do—or don’t—want. Finally, Baida recommends long-term care insurance. “The earlier you sign up, the less expensive it is.”

Friday, January 7, 2011

Dan Buettner: How to live to 100

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Seniors use video games to stay sharp

As individuals age, their cognitive skills tend to decline. However, some seniors have taken to video games to stay sharp and fit in a fun way. Here are just four of the ways that video games can help your cognitive performance.

1. According to Psychology and Aging, playing complex video games after receiving training may improve the cognitive function of seniors.

2. Aside from improving their cognitive functions, video games, which require seniors to juggle multiple tasks, may also improve their ability to perform other everyday tasks.

3. Research conducted in the past indicates that Nintendo Wii games can be successfully used to help treat seniors with Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and other illnesses of a psychological or psychosocial nature.

4. Preliminary studies have shown that video games with a strategic element may help older adults keep their brains sharp.

So while the common image of playing video games appears dormant and mind-dulling, studies seem to show the contrary. More and more research is coming out just as fast as Wii games are selling out proving that certain video games can legitimately improve senior’s health by keeping them active, both physically and mentally.

Courtesy of Home Care Blog

Home Care Assistance offers the highest quality 24/7 live-in home care in the Region of Halton (Oakville, Burlington, Halton Hills, and Milton), Region of Peel (Mississauga, Brampton and Caledon) and Hamilton.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Home Care Assistance Case Study: "Taking the Stairs"

CASE STUDY: TAKING THE STAIRS

SUMMARY

Client A suffers from Parkinson’s Disease
Struggled with mobility after returning from hospital
Our lifestyle plan helped client regain motor skills

Client A is in his late 70′s and has always prided himself on being independent. As a journalist for most of his career, he was used to a fast-paced lifestyle that kept him on the go. When Home Care Assistance was asked to care for Client A by his concerned family, he was suffering from the challenging symptoms of mid-to-late stage Parkinson’s. A sudden trip to the emergency room for heart failure only made his Parkinson’s worse. To help his transition back home from the hospital, the Home Care Assistance Director of Nursing met with Client A’s wife, family, case managers, and social workers. Working with Client A’s close family, Home Care Assistance supervised the retrofitting of their own home and the installation of an electric stair lift to help with mobility. Seeing how his health had deteriorated during his hospital stay, Home Care Assistance was determined to give Client A some of his independence back. Settling him into his new home, the Director of Nursing developed an intensive program of diet and exercise, and, most importantly, a plan to help Client A get his life back, all based up on the unique Balanced Care Method of holistic care. Every day, when Client A would make a request for assistance with a movement related task, the aide would respectfully urge Client A to try to do it on his own. Gradually, with close supervision and help from the aide, Client A had a major victory: he did the laundry himself, and then, to delight and surprise his wife, did hers, too. It was a moment of joy for the entire household, as he began to regain some of his independence once again. Eventually, the wheelchair sat, unused, in the corner, while Client A walked confidently with his walker. When the Home Care Assistance Director of Nursing visited Client A’s home after the record snowfall of this past winter, she asked how his electric stair lift had survived the cold. He replied, confidently, that he didn’t know because he never used it. Indeed, he explained, the stair lift was no longer needed now that he could walk up and down stairs on his own. If not for Home Care Assistance, he said, he would still be in the wheelchair that now sat in the corner.

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Monday, August 9, 2010

New Tea on the Block: Pu-erh

Pu-erh (Pronounced pew-er:) tea may be new to most North Americans, but it isn't actually "new." It's been grown and cured in the Yunnan province of China for over 2000 years and its distinguishing characteristic is, in fact, its age.

Xiaguan Te Ji (Special grade) raw tuo cha

Broad leaf tea leaves are fermented, pressed, and aged to make pu-erh tea (some versions are made without fermenting the tea first). All pu-erh tea used to be aged for decades, some are even aged as long as a century. Modern tea producers have found ways to speed up that process for most commercially available pu-erh tea.

Chinese medicine uses pu-erh tea to flush out toxins, treat dysentery, improve digestive function, facilitate weight loss, and improve blood circulation.

Modern scientific studies have found that pu-erh tea can lower blood pressure, reduce free radicals, and aid weight loss. It has also been shown to lower blood sugar levels and promote healthy bacterial flora in the intestines, thus, as traditional Chinese medicine proclaims, promoting healthy digestion. One Chinese study found that the fungi and bacteria that increase in pu-erh tea as it ages and give the tea its unique flavor are also those that develop polyphenols and cancer-fighting properties.

For as cure-all as this can start to sound, most striking are the studies that point to pu-erh tea's ability to lower cholesterol levels.

All tea – whether black, oolong, green, or pu-erh – contains antioxidants and polyphenols. Several studies have found that pu-erh tea is particularly effective at lowering bad cholesterol. A 2005 study at the Wun-Shan Branch Tea Research and Extension Station in Taipei, Taiwan looked at the cholesterol-lowering properties of all four types of tea and found that while they all decreased LDL-C (bad cholesterol), only pu-erh tea did not also lower HDL-C (good cholesterol) to some extent. When it comes to cholesterol, pu-erh tea takes the bad while leaving the good.

The same study found that pu-erh and oolong teas lowered triglycerides more than did black or green teas. All teas improved the activity of an important antioxidant enzyme.

An earlier French study found that subjects with high blood lipid levels experienced a 22% reduction in those levels when they were given three servings of pu-erh tea daily. The control group showed no change.

A similar study at Kunming Medical College in China found that subjects with hypertension or coronary heart disease (all of whom were admitted to the hospital for these conditions) who were given three servings of pu-erh tea daily showed a 64% reduction in blood lipid levels as compared to a 67% reduction in subjects who were given standard cholesterol-reducing drugs.

The Balanced Care Method™ recommends drinking several cups of tea daily because of the significant levels of antioxidants and flavonoids. Okinawan elders – the longest and healthiest lived population on earth – regularly drink large amounts of tea, keeping them hydrated and full of health-enhancing antioxidants and flavonoids.

Hydration is an important health benefit of tea. Sipping tea, including pu-erh tea, helps people stay hydrated. Unlike sodas and juices, tea provides water without empty calories or high levels of simple sugars. Dehydration in seniors can lead to symptoms that mimic serious conditions, even dementia. Symptoms of dehydration can include fatigue, headache, dry mouth, little or no urination, muscle weakness, dizziness, confusion, forgetfulness, rapid breathing, and even an increased heart rate.

Aim for a total of eight glasses of water or the equivalent every day. More may be necessary if taking medications that have diuretic or laxative effects. To avoid dehydration:

• Drink before you feel thirsty

• Have water or tea nearby for sipping throughout the day

• Drink water or tea before eating food at meals

Many American tea companies are starting to carry pu-erh teas in their lines. For the best quality, look for pu-erh teas from Yunnan province. Note that the older pu-erh teas will be more expensive.

Pu-erh teas are more forgiving when it comes to brewing than other types of tea. They are hard to over-brew. Brew pu-erh teas with boiling water and let steep about three minutes. Sweeten or add lemon to taste.

Source: CareNotes Newsletter (Volume 3, Number 3)

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Calorie Restriction: Breakthrough or Fad?

The publication earlier this year of Greg Crister's Eternity Soup: Dying for Eternal Youth as well as a big story in The New York Times Sunday Magazine last October have brought calorie restriction into the mainstream. Calorie restriction is a theory and practice of consistently and permanently eating an extremely low-calorie diet with the aim of extending one's lifespan.

Calorie restriction diets that aim to extend lifespan aim do so by consuming fewer calories than are needed to maintain normal weight, while still including all the nutrients and vitamins needed for good health. Most people who follow this diet eat 20 to 30 percent less than is normally recommended for their weight and age.

Proponents of calorie restriction contend that since processing calories uses energy, taxes organs, and creates cancer- and disease-causing free radicals; keeping calories to a minimum thus extends life. The easiest analogy is that our bodies are like cars and eating/digestion is like driving them – the less you run them, the longer they'll last.

The science behind calorie restriction is based primarily on animal studies. The theory, according to Crister, stretches back to the 16th century when the Renaissance humanist Alvise Corano posited that an extremely modest diet would lead to a longer life. His doctor recommended a simple diet because of symptoms that sound like type 2 diabetes. Corano ended up living to the age of 83 and credited his long life to his modest eating habits.

Modern and scientific studies cited by calorie restriction proponents have mostly been done on rodents. Mice fed a diet that reduced their calories by 30 to 60 percent from a young age increased their lifespan by 30 to 60 percent. Mice given a diet that reduced their calorie intake by 44 percent as "adults" lived, on average, 10 to 20 percent longer. Calorie restriction also seemed to lower cases of diabetes, heart disease, and cancer as well as decrease the rate of nerve damage from Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, and strokes.

The problem (or the good news if restricting less than 1,000 per day sounds more pleasant) with this theory is that it doesn't carry fully over to humans. The limited studies of calorie restriction in humans have found both positive and negative effects, and no evidence that it extends lifespan. According to the Mayo Clinic, the limited research that has been done on calorie restriction in humans has shown it beneficial in lowering blood pressure, controlling blood sugar and cholesterol levels, and (not surprisingly) maintaining a healthy weight. Yet seniors and leaner people are particularly susceptible to the ill effects of calorie restriction which include hormonal changes, reduced bone density, and a loss of muscle mass. Calorie restriction has been shown to cause depression, irritability, and lethargy.

Eternity Soup points out that there is a difference between lifespan and life expectancy. A lifespan is the maximum number of years that an organism can, with all things being optimal, live. While no one is sure about the true possible human lifespan, many agree that it probably hovers around 120 years. Of course, because of disease, lifestyle, and environmental factors, our life expectancy is nowhere near that and instead hovers in the 70s and 80s.

The possible benefits of calorie restriction become even murkier when one considers the emerging notion of longevity quotients, which is how long an animal lives relative to how long it should live based on its body size, all questions of optimal life span aside. Calorie restriction allows animals such as mice with low longevity quotients to reach their full lifespan. People already have a high longevity quotient, that is, we live longer than one might expect based on our size. The possible lifespan-enhancing effects of calorie restriction, following this logic, are minimal.

What is clear is that balanced modest diets – not restricted but not gluttonous either – have clear health benefits at every stage of life. The Balanced Care Method™ focuses on maintaining a lean body mass through a diet high in nutrient-rich, plant-based foods, regular physical activity, and eating until 80 percent full.

Corano, the Renaissance Italian who believed less food would help people live longer, believed the perfect meal was one of panatella, a soup made of rich chicken broth, bits of dried whole grain bread, a poached egg, and a generous spoonful of olive oil: Delicious, healthful, and a good addition to the Balanced Care Method™.

Panatella
This recipe is inspired by Corano's description of a good, simple meal. We've added a few vegetables to make it more Balanced Care Method™-perfect. This recipe makes one serving but is easily doubled, tripled, and beyond.

1 slice whole grain bread
2 to 3 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
1 tomato (fresh or canned), chopped
1 cup spinach or chard leaves, cut into ribbons
1 egg (optional)
1 Tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

Toast the bread. Tear or cut the toast into bite-size pieces and place in the bottom of a soup bowl.
In a medium saucepan, bring the broth to a boil. Reduce heat to a steady simmer and add tomato. Bring broth back to a simmer and add the spinach or chard. Cook until spinach or chard is tender, about 2 minutes.
Crack egg into soup and simmer, undisturbed, until cooked to desired doneness (about 3 minutes for cooked whites and a runny yolk, about 6 minutes for a set yolk). Use a slotted spoon to transfer egg onto toast pieces in the soup bowl.
Pour broth and vegetables over the egg and toast. Garnish by drizzling with the olive oil. Serve hot.

Why Any and All Activity Matters

The health benefits of exercise are extraordinarily well documented. Regular exercise lowers your risk of a stroke by 27%, reduces instances of both high blood pressure and Alzheimer's disease by 40%, cuts your chance of developing diabetes by 50%, and lowers your risk of developing colon cancer by a whopping 60%. As well, it obviously helps maintain a healthy weight. Plus, exercise has been shown to be just as effective at fighting depression as both SSRIs (like Prozac) and therapy.

A recent study from the Appalachian State University's Human Performance Lab even showed that people who took a brisk walk five days a week had fewer and less severe colds and flus than sedentary control subjects. So it's not just long-term chronic and fatal conditions that being fit staves off – regular exercise actually helps you battle the common cold, too!

Beyond full-on exercise, however, a recent study out of Australia also shows the health risk of being inactive. The study from the physical activity lab at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Victoria, Australia found that the more television its subjects watched, the greater risk they had of dying at a younger age, particularly from heart disease.

Subjects in the study who watched four hours or more of television per day were 80% more likely to die from heart disease and 46% more likely to die from all causes, even when factors such as: education levels, overall health, age, past smoking, waist circumference, cholesterol levels, and blood pressure of the subjects was taken into account.

The study concluded that the real problem with television watching is that it is done while sitting, and sitting with extraordinarily little muscle movement. Such "extreme" inactivity affects metabolism overall, not just during the time spent inactive. A study from July 2008 showed that standing engages muscles and promotes the distribution of lipase, a fat-absorbing enzyme that triggers the body to process fat and cholesterol. Most important, the benefits of this regular, unremarkable movement are independent from the amount of time subjects spent exercising.

That same study found that the health consequences that develop from too much sitting are very different and independent from those that result from too little exercise. Along with the recent Australian study, it found that the negative health consequences of prolonged periods of sitting – larger waistlines, higher bad cholesterol levels, lower good cholesterol levels, heart disease risks – were not fully counteracted by regular exercise.

In other words, regular exercise – beneficial as it is – doesn't counteract the negative effects of long periods of inactivity.

Part of the issue is that television watching is fundamentally inactive. Harvard Health Publications estimates that, when it comes to calories burned, watching television (56 calories per hour) is closer to sleeping (46 calories per hour) than it is to sitting and reading (84 calories per hour), which itself is more akin to standing in line (94 calories per hour) than it is to watching television. (Note: calorie counts are for a 155-pound person.) In other words, watching television is an inactive as a person can get without sleeping.

Along with limiting television watching, these studies point to the importance of remaining active throughout the day. The good news is that it ends up that the simple physical movements of standing and moving between rooms has significant health benefits. When watching television, standing up during commercial breaks, going to get a glass of water, or even putting down the remote control and getting up to change channels and adjust volume the old-fashioned way can help people from staying in one extremely inactive position for extended periods of time.

Light household tasks and self-care – activities encouraged by the Balanced Care Method™ whenever clients are physically able – can help keep people moving. Not only does such daily activity help keep people physically active longer, we now know it also can help fight heart disease and other health risks.

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