There are many advantages to home care, are you aware of them?

The biggest advantage of in-home care for seniors; it allows older adults to age in place and avoids making the move to an institution. At home, seniors feel most comfortable with the environment they are comfortable with. The significant factor of receiving care at home depends on the level of need by a person.

Benefits of Home Care

In-home care gives families confidence and peace knowing their aging loved ones are comfortable at home and receiving professional, compassionate, and personalized care.

In many cases, it’s the most satisfying form of senior care and sometimes more affordable than other types of care. There are lots of other reasons for the growing demand for our services, too.

Home care offers a person with individual needs to stay home. The services might be for people who are getting older, who are chronically ill, who are recovering from surgery, who live with a disability. Home care services include:

• Personal care, like help with bathing, washing hair, shaving, or getting dressed.
• Homemaking, like cleaning the house, yard work, and laundry.
• Cooking, meal preparation, shopping, picking up medications, or delivering meals.
• Health care services from a home health aide.

It’s no surprise that UV Safety Month is in July – a month filled with hot days, summer vacations, and plenty of outdoor activities.

Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States. Most cases of melanoma, the deadliest kind of skin cancer, are caused by exposure to ultraviolet rays. To lower your skin cancer risk, protect your skin from the sun, and avoid indoor tanning.

Despite ongoing awareness efforts around sun safety, a million cases of skin cancer are still diagnosed every year. One in five Americans will get skin cancer during their lifetime, and it’s the second-most diagnosed form of cancer in 15 to 29-year-olds. When detected early, skin cancer has a 98% survival rate.

Here are the top 10 tips for sun safety and skin health:

1. Make a yearly date with your dermatologist for a skin cancer screening. Check your own body once a month for changes in the shape, size, and color of moles.
2. Don’t forget your ears, hands, feet, and neck when applying sunscreen.
3. Use sunscreen when driving on long road trips because windows do not protect you from the sun!
4. Pack an umbrella AND sunscreen: 80% of UV rays pass through clouds, so wear sunscreen regardless of the weather.
5. Protect your lips! Your lips have less melatonin than the rest of your body.
6. Use a golf-ball-sized amount of sunscreen to be sure your entire body is protected.
7. Make sure everything you wear offers sun protection, from hats to sunglasses to facial moisturizers.
8. Set your watch to watch your back every 2 hours. That’s how often you should reapply sunscreen.
9. Always have a supply of sunscreen with SPF on hand.
10. Remember that the sun never takes a vacation, so apply sunscreen in all four seasons of the year.

What is aphasia?

Aphasia is a communication disorder that results from damage to the parts of the brain that contain language. Individuals who experience damage to the right side of the brain may have additional difficulties beyond speech and language issues. Aphasia may cause difficulties in speaking, listening, reading, and writing, but does not affect intelligence. 

What causes aphasia? 

Aphasia is most often caused by stroke. However, any disease or damage to the parts of the brain that control language can cause aphasia. These include brain tumors, traumatic brain injury, and progressive neurological disorders. 

What are some signs or symptoms of aphasia?

Difficulty producing language:

• Have trouble coming up with the words they want to say
• Substitute the intended word with another word that may be related in meaning to the target
• Use made-up words
• Have difficulty putting words together to form sentences
•  String together made-up words and real words fluently but without making sense

Difficulty understanding language:

• Misunderstand what others say, especially when they speak fast
• Find it hard to understand speech in background noise or in group situations
• Misinterpret jokes and take the literal meaning of figurative speech
• Difficulty reading and writing:
• Difficulty reading forms, pamphlets, books, and other written material
• Problems spelling and putting words together to write sentences
• Difficulty understanding number concepts

How is aphasia diagnosed

The speech-language pathologist evaluates the individual with a variety of tools to determine the type and severity of aphasia. It includes assessment of:

• Auditory Comprehension: understanding words, questions, directions, and stories
• Verbal Expression: producing automatic sequences, naming objects, describing pictures, responding to questions, and having conversations
• Reading and Writing: understanding or producing letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs
• Functional Communication: using gestures, drawing, pointing, or other supportive means of communication when he/she has trouble getting a point across verbally

What treatments are available for people with aphasia?

There are many types of treatment available for individuals with aphasia. The type of treatment depends on the needs and goals of the person with aphasia.

What can I do to communicate better with the person with aphasia?

1. Get the person’s attention before you start speaking.
2. Maintain eye contact and watch the person’s body language and use of gestures.
3. Minimize or eliminate background noise.
4. Keep your voice at a normal level.
5. Keep communication simple, but adult. Don’t “talk down” to the person with aphasia.
6. Simplify your sentence structure and emphasize keywords.
7. Give the individual time to speak. Resist the urge to finish sentences or offer words.
8. Communicate with drawings, gestures, writing, and facial expressions in addition to speech.
9. Encourage the person to use drawings, gestures, and writing.
10. Use yes and no questions rather than open-ended questions.
11. Engage in normal activities whenever possible.
12. Encourage independence and avoid being overprotective.

May is Stroke Awareness Month, and so we wanted to summarize a few key facts about stroke in one convenient spot!

Read on and spread the word – everyone should know stroke warning signs, the life-altering effects of stroke, and what kind of treatment stroke survivors can do to regain control of their lives!

What is a stroke?

• An ischemic stroke occurs when a clot blocks a vessel in the brain, which prevents blood supply to any areas of the brain supplied by that vessel.
• A hemorrhagic stroke, on the other hand, is when a vessel ruptures. Oddly enough, blood is poisonous to the brain, so if any parts of the brain are exposed to blood during a hemorrhage, those parts of the brain will be damaged.

What causes a stroke and how can I avoid it?

• Many disorders, such as AVM, Moyamoya, and cardiovascular disease (just to name a few) can cause strokes.
• Lifestyle risks include being overweight and inactive, overuse of alcohol, and use of illicit drugs.
• Other medical risks include high blood pressure, cigarette smoking, high cholesterol, diabetes, and sleep apnea.
• What are the symptoms of a stroke?
• Face drooping: Does one side of the face droop or is it numb? Ask the person to smile. Is the person’s smile uneven?
• Arms weakness:  Is one arm weak or numb? Ask the person to raise both arms. Does one arm drift downward?
• Speech difficulty: Is the person unable to speak or hard to understand? Ask the person to repeat a simple sentence, like “The sky is blue.” Is the sentence repeated correctly?

Time to Call 9-1-1:

If someone shows any of these symptoms, even if the symptoms go away, call 9-1-1 and get the person to the hospital immediately. Check the time so you’ll know when the first symptoms appeared.

Additional symptoms of a stroke include: trouble seeing in one or both eyes, trouble walking, dizziness, or loss of balance or coordination, or a sudden severe headache with no known cause.

What happens after a stroke?

• Language (speaking and/or understanding; written and/or spoken)
• Memory
• Attention
• Movement
• Sensation
• Swallowing
• Emotion
• Behavior
• Judgment

*** This is different for everyone. You may have trouble with one, some, or all the ones listed above.

How can stroke survivors regain control of their lives after a stroke, and gain back skills for daily living?

• Therapy has been proven to help recovery. There are many available apps that individuals can use at home in addition to in-clinic therapy.

Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the US, and each year there are more new cases of skin cancer than the combined incidence of breast, prostate, lung and colon cancer.

Skin cancer can affect anyone, regardless of skin color, gender, or age. In fact, one in five Americans will develop skin cancer during their lifetime. These facts may be alarming, but because skin cancer is mainly a behavioral disease, it is highly preventable.

About 86 percent of melanoma and 90 percent of nonmelanoma skin cancers are associated with exposure to the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays. That’s why embracing proper sun protection is critical all year round. The good news? Skin cancer can almost always be cured when it’s found and treated early. Communities, health professionals, and families can work together to prevent skin cancer or detect it early on.

Follow these Prevention Guidelines to stay sun-safe:

• Seek the shade (especially between 10 AM and 4 PM.)
• Do not burn.
• Avoid tanning and never use UV tanning beds.
• Cover up with clothing, including a broad-brimmed hat and UV-blocking sunglasses.
• Use a broad spectrum (UVA/UVB) sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or higher every day. For extended outdoor activity, use a water-resistant, broad spectrum (UVA/UVB) sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher.
• Apply 1 ounce (2 tablespoons) of sunscreen to your entire body 30 minutes before going outside. Reapply every two hours or immediately after swimming or excessive sweating.
• Keep newborns out of the sun. Sunscreens should be used on babies over the age of six months.
• Examine your skin head-to-toe every month.
• See your physician every year for a professional skin exam.

How can Melanoma/Skin Cancer Detection and Prevention Month make a difference?

• Encourage families to adopt good habits together, like wearing sunscreen and limiting their time in the sun.
• Motivate teachers and administrators to teach kids about the harm of UV radiation and why it’s important to protect yourself.
• Identify youth leaders in your community who can talk to their peers about taking steps to prevent skin cancer.
• Partner with a local hospital, state fair, or similar organization to host a skin cancer screening event.

Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative condition and after Alzheimer’s is the second most common disease in the United States.

Neurodegenerative is a term that refers to a progressive loss of nerve cells and/or their function. Neurodegeneration from Parkinson’s disease can give rise to a wide spectrum of symptoms; symptoms can vary widely between people in terms of their type and severity.

Symptoms of Parkinson’s disease include:

• difficulties with balance, swallowing, chewing and speaking
• tremor
• slowness
• constipation
• sleep disruption
• constipation
• psychological issues including problems with cognition, anxiety and depression

One of the most noticeable symptoms of Parkinson’s disease is a tremor in which the body makes involuntary quivering movements. As the disease progresses, symptoms can worsen. For example, over time a person may not be able to move, speak or swallow. This can often arise 4-8 years after the initial onset of Parkinson’s disease. The cause of Parkinson’s disease is unknown and there are no known successful treatments that can delay or stop its progression.

How can you help?

1.  Reach out to someone with Parkinson’s. If you know someone in your family, social circle or community with Parkinson’s, consider reaching out to them.
2.  Educate yourself and others. This disease is not limited to the tremor that mostly defines the general public’s understanding of the disease. What is less known is the pervasiveness of Parkinson’s, how it causes everything from mood disorder such as depression and anxiety, dementia, urinary incontinence, constipation, swallowing difficulties, pain and sleep disorders to name but a few.
3.  Raise money for research. Consider supporting fundraising events for Parkinson’s disease or raise money on your own accord. It takes a significant amount of money for a drug to make it from the lab to the pharmacy shelf.