Senior Spot

Healthy Eating Tips for Older Adults

http://www.helpguide.org/life/senior_nutrition.htm

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Tips for Caregivers

How do you balance caring for your loved one with caring for yourself?

http://www.workingcaregiver.com/articles/caregiver/caregiver-tips

Give Yourself a Break, Right Now

http://www.caregiver.com/articles/caregiver/give_yourself_a_break.htm

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Fitness, Wellness & Socialization!

As the country’s population ages, the baby-boomers place a huge emphasis on fitness, wellness and socialization. All are important factors to improve a person’s outlook on life, boost their immune system, and reduce stress.

The simplest exercise is walking. A walking program of just 15 minutes has proven to have a calming effect that lasts more than an hour. A progressive walking program can result in significant physical improvement.

The Wooster Parks and Recreation Department offers a variety of low impact aerobics, exercise programs, socialization activities, and a complete fitness center for age 50 and older.

http://www.woosteroh.com/rec.php

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Caregiver For Elderly Parents

Author: Hearn2

Caregiver, you think to yourself, when and how did I become the caregiver for my elderly parents. It is a term you have heard for years, but you never thought it would be associated with you.

Your parents are doing great, they travel, go out to dinner, still drive everywhere. You think I won't have to be a caregiver for a long time.

Unfortunately aging creeps up on people quicker then you may think. One minute they are mom and dad doing well, and out of no where they become aging parents who need your help for everything.

Becoming a caregiver to your elderly parents is never planned. I know all the books tell you that you should be prepared for when your parents will start needing your help. But reading about something and actually living it are two totally different things.

When your parents need your help for some minor things, and being a caregiver for your aging parents are completely different situations.

It seems to start out with just some small little chores you find yourself doing. While your visiting your parents you may notice little changes around the house. It may seem their home it a little untidier then what you remember. The refrigerator seems a little more baron then is usual.

So when you visit again, you find yourself cleaning their house for them. At first just some basics. Dusting, vacuuming, maybe washing some floor. It all seems innocent enough. You do not even realize you are doing more and more at each visit.

Soon you are visiting your aging parents more and more, and with each visit you seem to be taking on more responsibility. You spend less time just visiting with them and more time taking care of them.

You begin doing the grocery shopping, making more and more of their appointment for them. Taking them places they need to be.

One day while I was at my parents home, the mail came when I looked at it I realized all of the bills were overdue. They just forgot to pay them. That was the big eye opener.

Now I had responsibility for their finances as well as their day-to-day living. That is when I knew I was a caregiver for aging parents.

It all started so gradually, at least I thought so. A little house cleaning and grocery shopping I thought at the time was no big deal. When you are in the situation you just don’t see it coming on. Now when I look back at it I wonder, how could I have not been more prepared for being the caregiver for mom and dad.

It seems like one Christmas, both my parents did all their normal activities. They did their shopping, and they decorated their home for the holidays. When we all came over on Christmas eve, everything was ready. The gifts were wrapped the food was done the house was decorated.

One year later, my mother wasn’t driving any longer, so I did all the shopping. Then I had to decorated the house and get the food ready. With in a year I became a full time caregiver to my aging parents.

The funny thing is everyone around noticed how much help my parents required, but I never saw it. When you become a caregiver to your parents, I don’t think while you are doing it you realize how much you are responsible for.

If I could give everyone who is now taking care of aging parents, one piece of advice it is please do not try and do everything yourself. Get as much help as you can. Hopefully you will have family who can help you. But if you do not have family who will help, you have to find outside help.

To all the daughters out there, you more then anyone will have to shoulder all most all the responsibility when it come to taking care of yourelderly parents"> I have no answer why that is.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/elderly-care-articles/caregiver-for-elderly-parents-1811165.html

About the Author

For over ten years I spent many days, weeks and months in hospitals,rehab centers and nursing homes and 90% of the caregivers that I would meet were all daughters. Even in families that had sons, which were most. It seems no matter how many sons there were, if there was one daughter she became the caregiver for her elderly parents.

http://caregiverhelp-hearn2.blogspot.com/

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Be The Star Of Your Own Anti-Aging "Today Show"

Barbara Morris R.Ph.

The mental and physical decline that accompanies the aging process - is it inevitable? Or is it a result of cultural influences and how we live?

Gerontologist John W. Rowe, MD, believes, as do many other experts, that 70 percent of the aging process is controllable with wise lifestyle choices. The remaining 30% is the result of heredity.

I agree with Dr. Rowe, but I believe he is conservative in his estimation. Based on my own personal experience, I am convinced that the amount of power you have to control how you age is 80 percent or better. We often unfairly assign blame to our ancestors for health issues when our own thinking and behaviors are responsible.

If you think about it, 70-80 percent is a staggering amount of power to wield over how well you age. If you are a boomer or younger, that means that if you learn to create and live an anti-aging lifestyle, you can stay the age you are now (mentally and physically) for at least another 25 years.

Once you adopt an anti-aging lifestyle, management of aging gets easier and having youthful attributes for another 25 years rockets into 30-35 more years. We are living longer so the more years we have to live a vibrant, healthy lifestyle, the happier we will be.

Why do so many not use or lose their anti-aging power so early in life? Four main reasons:

* Neglect - low self-esteem -- "I'm not worth caring about."

* Willful abuse - a lifetime of excessive processed food, alcohol, lack of sleep, exercise, tobacco, and water.

* Belief that you will age like everyone else- there is nothing you can do to change things.

* Most people just don't realize how much power they have. No one has ever told them the extent to which they can hold the reins of their physical and mental aging.

Our culture encourages thinking "outside the box." But when it comes to aging and management of the aging process, we are mired in an "earth is flat" mentality. For example, we still refer to age 65 as elderly.

A profitable and thriving "old folks" economy fuels the "age 65 is elderly" myth. Take, for instance, the "senior" housing industry. It prospers on contrived "needs" of so-called "active seniors." (Advertising designates "active seniors" as 50 plus. When you are 50 plus, you are not a senior. Don't allow yourself to be stuffed into that old box!)

When "active seniors" are segregated into one place, old thinking and behaviors proliferate quickly, in spite of amenities that promote an active lifestyle. Older people rely on each other for emotional support, and that includes adopting each other's thinking and behaviors.

Like perfectly programmed robots we march into old age, fully accepting consensus thinking, archaic tradition, and contemporary cultural norms. It's not necessarily bad - it's the uncritical acceptance of "this is the way it should be" that seals our fate into premature decline.

At age 65 too many of us do wake up one day and find ourselves in decline and debilitation. We wonder how it happened. The reasons are so obvious we never saw them coming:

* We didn't think about and plan for the future while we were still young - old age was too far off and we had "more important things to think about today".

* We knew what we should and could do to slow decline but again, we had "more important things to do today".

* We knew we should exercise every single day but there were "more important things to do today".

It's our own personal "Today Show" that determines whether or not we will join the ranks of the premature elderly.

Be the star and producer of your own anti-aging "Today Show" right now. Choose thinking and behaviors that will prolong the active, healthy lifestyle you have right now or want to have. Think critically about how contemporary cultural norms and lifestyles will affect your future and avoid those things that will lead to premature decline.

Remember, at least 70 percent of how well you age is in your hands. Plan right now to use that power wisely.

Barbara Morris, R.Ph. is a pharmacist,youth preservation strategist and author of Put Old on Hold. Visit her website and sign up for her newsletter and receive the special report, "Twelve Diva Tested Tips for Fabulous Skin."

Editor's Choice Award:

Editor's info: Mary Desaulniers Ph.D. A retired teacher, Mary founded "Great Body at 50", a website that offers solutions to weight management through mind and body work which includes discovering the creative energy behind the hunger. www.GreatBodyat50.com GreatBodyat50.blogspot.com

To find other free health content see e-healtharticles.com