COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, pertains to two lung diseases: emphysema and chronic bronchitis. Basically, patients’ breathing is severely affected by an obstruction to airflow. Frequent symptoms include an excessively wet cough, wheezing, shortness of breath, and tightness in the chest.
COPD can transform daily life into a struggle. The good news is that there are breathing exercises that may help people better manage COPD symptoms and enhance quality of life. These exercises help strengthen the abdominal muscles and diaphragm, so individuals with COPD can take in more oxygen and expend less effort into breathing.
Bed sores affect nearly one in every ten seniors, and are even more prevalent in people who smoke, are living with a chronic illness like diabetes, or who have thin or fragile skin. Also known as pressure sores or pressure injuries, bed sores are not merely extremely painful – they can easily progress to infections that can become life-threatening.
Of all the changes that happen as a person ages, senior bruising is one that can be alarming for family members to observe in their older loved ones. Is it essential to talk to the senior’s doctor whenever there’s a health concern, but it is also important to understand that senior bruising is quite common. Bruising in older adults typically results from the thinning of the skin and a reduction…
It’s not a facet of senior personal care that is as widely discussed as other tasks, but is critical to keeping seniors healthy nonetheless. Aging skin care issues can cause a wide variety of difficulties for seniors, including itching, bruising, dryness, discomfort, and more.
Providing the helping hand that empowers seniors to stay healthy, independent, and happy is the intent of not only our professional senior care staff, but of most family caregivers as well. Because the quality of life of older adults is so important to us, it’s crucial that we review a topic that can be really difficult for many of us to even imagine – elder abuse.
While it goes without saying that abusing an older adult is something that would never even occur to most people, it is a tragically prevalent circumstance in the U.S. Elder abuse can occur in many forms, from physical to emotional, and it affects the most frail and vulnerable among us.
Slurred speech. Numbness on one side of the body. Confusion. Seems like a stroke, right? However, if those stroke-like symptoms abate rather fast and are rather minor, they may be caused by a TIA (transient ischemic attack). But prior to breathing that sigh of relief and getting back to life as usual, it is crucial to recognize the facts about TIAs and why they ought to always be brought to…
On a hot summer day, there is nothing more satisfying than a tall, cold drink, but for a senior with dysphagia symptoms, this simple pleasure could be dangerous. Dysphagia – or trouble with swallowing – affects millions of older adults, due to weakened mouth and/or throat muscles. Alzheimer’s, MS, cancer, and stroke are all root causes as well.
Care providers devote so much of themselves to those they care for – both physically and emotionally. It’s common to become worn down and to start to experience feelings such as apathy, weariness, and a detachment from the person in your care. Referred to as compassion fatigue or secondary traumatic stress, it can be harmful to your own health and wellbeing but may also impact your ability to be as…