3 Reasons Why Yoga is Good for Seniors

As people age, they often become less active due to any number of reasons, such as no longer working, fewer friends or distant family, or even many chronic diseases. They may suffer from conditions such as osteoarthritis, joint stress, and other types of pain. Seniors are also likely to experience higher rates of stress, depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems. However, there are a number of ways by which you can improve the overall health of your aging loved one. For example, healthy eating and exercise can keep your loved one physically, as well as mentally, fit. Yoga also offers a wide array of benefits, both physical and psychological. Here are a few reasons why yoga is good for older adults.

• It promotes balance – As people age, they tend to lose their body center and suffer from frequent tripping, slipping, or falls. Practicing yoga regularly can help seniors develop a better body balance, which will ultimately reduce the risk of falls.
• It improves the flexibility – The different positions involved in yoga helps keep muscles limber, causing less stress on their joints. The more your loved one practices yoga, the looser their muscles and joints become. This improves their flexibility, making daily living tasks easier for them.
• It alleviates stress – Studies show that practicing yoga can help in reducing stress and anxiety. Practicing deep breathing is better than many other types of stress management techniques.

However, your loved one may need someone to accompany them to classes and look after their safety while they practice yoga. If you are unable to bring them to classes and watch over them while they practice yoga, consider hiring a professional help in the form of caregivers.

An in-home caregiver will be able to assist your senior family member with daily living tasks and ensure that they are safe and practicing their daily yoga properly. Just make sure to do your homework and hire reputed caregivers who have years of experience in taking care of seniors.

Contact Always Best Care to hire their experienced in-home care providers in North Vancouver. For more information, call (778) 945-3010.

Are You Looking for Ways to Prevent Senior Isolation?

Do you know a senior citizen living alone? Isolation may be part of the cause of their declining health. Loneliness and isolation has been directly linked to multiple health conditions, including stress, depression, and other mental health issues. It is important for the seniors to stay socially active and connected to decrease their isolation. Here are a few ways that can help your elders avoid isolation.

• Many senior citizens can no longer drive due to declining health or increasing age. A reliable transportation service can help seniors maintain their social connections.
• Encourage your aging loved ones to participate in different social activities and cultural programs. This helps them stay socially active and provides your senior an opportunity to engage and socialize with people of same age.
• If your loved one lives alone, consider hiring an in-home caregiver to ensure their safety. The experienced care providers can look after your senior and their needs, plus help them stay socially active and connected. They provide much-needed companionship services, helping your loved one feel more involved. They can even plan and accompany your seniors for lunch, shopping, movies, and outings.
  
  
                         
  
  
  
  
  It is extremely important to find a reputed in-home care provider. If you are planning to hire an in-home care provider for your loved one in West Vancouver, contact Always Best Care. They have highly trained, bonded, and insured caregivers who provide compassionate care giving services. To learn more about their services, call (778) 945-3010.

Seniors: Drive Safely With These Tips

While seniors might hold a wealth of experience over their newly-licensed, teenage counterparts, there are also several risks involved that impair senior driving safety. People over the age of 65, regardless of health, should take a step back to consider whether they should be behind the wheel or not. This, of course, is not just for their own safety, but for everyone on the road.

People over the age of 65 are 16% more likely to get into a car crash than any other age demographic. They are also more likely to be killed in the crash, due to bones being more brittle and various medical conditions that cause the body to go into physical and mental decline. Those who are more likely to faint are twice as likely to cause a car crash (which is fairly obvious) but the reason behind it is that as many as 1/3 of seniors over the age of 70 have a heart condition that can cause habitual fainting.

How to Determine When to Turn Over the Keys

• Is the senior suffering from any cognitive diseases like Alzheimer’s, dementia, etc.?
• Is the senior suffering from a chronic condition such as heart problems, a history of fainting, vision problems, etc.?
• Is the senior taking any prescriptions that can cause drowsiness or have some other impact on driving like causing blurred vision?
• Is the senior showing any decline in reaction time and reflexes?
• Is the senior wearing the proper glasses for his/her updated glass prescription?
  
  

Alternatives to Driving 

While there’s certainly nothing like driving yourself around to where you need to go, there are plenty of alternatives to consider if safety and health is an issue.

• Call a taxi cab
• While Uber is not currently available in Vancouver, there are a number of other ride-share and taxi type alternatives available
• Ask a friend or family member
• Call HandyDart, a ride service for people who have physical limitations or who have cognitive disabilities
• Walk to the location if the weather is agreeable
  
  

Staying Safe While Driving

• Always wear a seatbelt
• Don’t smoke while driving
• Don’t use a cell phone while driving
• Stay fit – mentally and physically
• Keep the radio on low
• Have your route planned
  
  

Seniors living in the Vancouver area, who are interested in learning about home health care providers in Vancouver, or would like free referrals for assisted living in Vancouver, can call the Always Best Care Vancouver branch at 778-945-3010 for a free consultation.

Seniors: When Should You Retire?

Some seniors can’t wait to retire, and still others never want to retire. While working through retirement years may seem to some like the way to stay physically active and maintain a social network, retiring can make these things easier through more time and resources available. Many seniors struggle with the idea of when to retire, so here are a couple of factors to consider when thinking it through:

• Mental Preparedness. Like most people, you’ve probably put 1/3 or more of your life into working. Along with this brings a sense of purpose, social attachments, and a certain amount of stress. Being retired means eliminating the stress, but also, possibly, that sense of purpose that you’ve held dear for the past 30-40 years of your life. To be mentally prepared for retirement, find a new sense of purpose beforehand – could be volunteering, a creative outlet, etc., and also find a way to connect socially. This could be by joining a gym or the YMCA, the local senior community center, or by schedule lunches and dinners with friends. One of the biggest factors to retirement is the possible loneliness, knowing this, create avenues to combat it.
• Financial Stability. Ideally, a senior should be able to live in the manner they’re accustomed to for 20-30 years when they retire. Think about how much it will take to buy food, buy medications, pay for utilities, etc., and also for entertainment and hobbies (as you don’t want retirement to be boring!)

Staying Busy During Retirement

Retirement can mean the very best years of your life because you have the time, and the financial means to pursue dreams you never could before. Here are some ways to stay busy and have fun during your retirement years:

• Travel
• Join a sports program for seniors
• Join a club: book, theater, art, photography, movie, etc.
• Move to another city
• Volunteer
• Remodel your home

Always Best Care has been in the senior care giving industry for the past 20 years. If you are a senior in the North Vancouver area, and would like information about their home care services in West Vancouver, or other options surrounding senior living in North Shore, call the Always Best Care North Vancouver location at 778-945-3010 today to set up your free care consultation. They look forward to discussing your bright future with you!

Seniors: Preventing Falls Could Save Your Life

Falling can’t always be avoided; however, there are steps you can take to minimize your risk. And, when doing so, you’re taking steps toward a healthier future. Did you know that one out of every three seniors fall every year? Falls are responsible for two million emergency room visits that can also result in brain injury, hip fractures, and total loss of independence sometime during the first year after the fall.

How You Can Prevent Falls

• Look at your medications. A single medication, or a mix of them, can cause dizziness and drowsiness, a dangerous combination and one that is likely to cause you to fall. Talk with your doctor about how you can minimize this risk and discuss side effects.
  
• Stay physically fit. It’s not just for heart health, it’s also to strengthen muscles, improve coordination and balance. Doctors recommend seniors get 2.5 hours of exercise every week, and this will help you keep your balance and avoid those falls. Consider activities such as yoga, and tai-chi.
  
• Keep your home safe. You spend most of your time in your home. So, it only stands to reason that you’re most likely to fall – inside your home. Make your home a safer place to be by installing grab bars, extra hand rails, improve the lighting in hallways and in every room, and make sure carpets and throw rugs are sufficiently tacked down.
  
• Keep your bones healthy. Strong muscles are just the first step toward preventing falls; you also want to keep your bones healthy. Do this by consuming an adequate amount of calcium. This means that women over the age of 50, and men over the age of 70 should have 1,200 mg per day. While, men between 50 and 70 should consume 1,000 mg per day.

Always Best Care is a premier provider of senior care services in Canada and the United States. In the industry for 20 years, they have provided assistance to over 25,000 seniors in their numerous locations around North America. If you live in the North Vancouver area and would like information about in-home care in Burnaby, or other options regarding home health care in North Vancouver, call the Always Best Care North Vancouver branch at 778-945-3010 today to set up your free care consultation.

What Happens When Caregivers Burn Out?

With the growing number of seniors in North America, caregiver burn out is a very real condition. It can happen to any caregiver after any amount of time but usually happens within the first month to six weeks of senior care giving. It’s important to recognize the signs of caregiver burnout so that if and when it does happen, you can seek support through your network – ie. doctor, friends, support group.

• Not eating right. A change in eating patterns is common in caregiver burnout. It might be too little, or too much, and is an indicator of internal stress.

• Depression. Feeling an extreme amount of stress and possible thoughts of suicide is a big indicator of caregiver burnout.

• No longer interested in your hobbies. You used to like reading, now you don’t, you used to like going to the movies, seeing friends, etc., now you don’t want to. Activities you previously enjoyed that seem uninteresting to you now is a big sign of caregiver burnout.

• You don’t want to spend time with anyone. Not wanting to see friends or family members, or not wanting to interact with people in general is an indicator that your care giving duties have become a strain on you mentally.

• Problems sleeping. You aren’t sleeping enough, you have trouble falling asleep, you don’t want to get out of bed in the morning – these are all signs that your care giving duties are getting the better of you.

• Your immunity is low. You have aches and pains, and even a cold that doesn’t seem to want to go away. A weakened immunity is a reaction to stress.

If you find that these symptoms are happening to you and you believe it’s due to caregiver burnout, don’t hesitate to enlist someone to help you support your loved one, and/or take some time to yourself. It’s important that you spend time on yourself throughout the day. Even 20 minutes a day meditating, walking in nature, etc., will help you feel refreshed and rejuvenated during this hard time.

If you live in the N. Vancouver area, and would like information about senior care in Vancouver, or free referrals for assisted living in North Shore, you can call the Always Best Care N. Vancouver location at 778-945-3010 to set up a free care consultation. They look forward to talking with you about your future!

Helping A Senior Improve Their Physical Fitness

Everybody knows that as we get older, it can get more difficult to move, and energy levels aren’t what they used to be. However, staying physically active is a great way to slow down the aging process, and to keep the body running at optimal levels. And even though doctors let seniors know the importance of physical exercise, some seniors remain reluctant to dive in. Here are some ways to help a senior improve their physical fitness:

• Let them know that they can take baby steps. Too often, when people think about physical fitness they think about marathon runners and triathlon athletes. Of course this idea will be daunting for seniors, so make sure they know that they can take baby steps in their progress. Also, let them know that improving their diet doesn’t mean eating “rabbit” food all the time - a simple swap of one piece of junk food for an apple or vegetable is a great place to start.

• Regular exercise: Regular exercise should be encouraged and if you take part in it, too, it’ll be more fun and easier to accomplish. Suggest group activities that the family can enjoy like hikes, walks, bike rides, even yard work. By increasing the oxygen level to the muscles and the brain, the body is renewing itself and warding off disease.

• Encourage them to drink at least 6-8 glasses of water a day. It can be easy for seniors to get dehydrated because the sense of being thirsty decreases as we age. Make sure they keep a water bottle nearby, and that they are continually refilling it. Hydration means protection from viral and bacterial infections, and raises immunity levels.

• Encourage them with praise. Changing lifestyles can be difficult for anyone. Incorporating exercise and eating right might seem like a fruitless path (at first) so encourage them when you can, even when the praise is small, it is meaningful.

Always Best Care has been North America’s premier senior caregiver for the past 20 years. Seniors living in the North Vancouver area, who are interested in home care in West Vancouver, can call the Always Best Care N Vancouver location at 778-945-3010 or email them at hhamidi@abc-seniors.com to set up a free care consultation. A professional care coordinator will be happy to discuss in-home care in Burnaby, as well as free referrals to assisted living communities. They look forward to talking with you!