Aging health Archives - Better Health While Aging

Hiring In-Home Care for Aging in Place: What to Know

This article is by Michelle Allen, LCSW. Michelle is an experienced social worker and geriatric care manager based in Atlanta and is a featured expert providing guidance in our Helping Older Parents Membership.

At some point, you may need to have someone help your older parent – or perhaps you – with care in the home.

So, what do you do when you need some more hands to help with housekeeping, meal preparation, dressing, transportation, medication management, etc.? How do you find qualified, reliable, kind, and trustworthy people?

About two-thirds of all help comes from unpaid caregivers — such as daughters, sons, and friends — and about one-third of all help comes from paid caregivers.

It is easy to understand how you get a family member or friend to help — you usually just ask. But hiring paid caregivers can be a bit more daunting.

In this article, I’ll explain what you need to know, to better understand your options and get the care that is needed.

Home Care vs. Home Health

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6 Ways that Memory & Thinking Change with Normal Aging (& What to Do About This)

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH 53 Comments

brain changes with aging It’s annoying but unfortunately true: most parts of the body work less well as one gets older and older.

This is even true of the brain, which is part of why it becomes more common to experience a “tip of the tongue” moment as one gets older.

Such age-related changes in how the brain manages memory, thinking, and other mental processes are called “cognitive aging.”

Understanding how aging changes cognition is important. It can help you understand what to anticipate when it comes to your own aging. It can also help families better understand the changes they’re noticing in an older person, and whether those are out of the ordinary or not.

Since I’ve often written about changes in thinking that are abnormal and concerning in older adults, I thought it might be helpful for me to write an article outlining what is normal and to be expected.

Specifically, I’ll cover:

How cognitive aging differs from other diseases and conditions that affect memory and thinking
6 ways that memory and thinking change with aging
The difference between crystallized and fluid intelligence
How to tell cognitive aging apart from more worrisome changes
Practical takeaways and what you can do

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4 Key Things to Know About Age-Related Hearing Loss

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH 18 Comments

Have you noticed that an older relative seems to be having trouble hearing you at times?

Or perhaps you’ve realized that sometimes YOU are the one saying “What?”

These situations are extremely common. Sometimes the issue is that one is trying to communicate in a noisy place and there is no need for concern.

But in many cases, these kinds of issues can indicate that an older person (or even a middle-aged person) is being affected by progressively worsening hearing loss.

You probably already know this: chronic hearing impairment becomes very common as one gets older. The National Institute on Aging reports that one in three adults aged 65-74 has hearing loss, and nearly half of those aged 75+ have difficulty with hearing.

Hearing loss also affects a significant number of people earlier in life. A 2011 study on the epidemiology of hearing loss documented hearing loss in 11% of participants aged 45-54, and 25% of those aged 55-64.

In short, research confirms that quite a lot of people experience hearing loss. But sadly, research also confirms that hearing loss is often under-recognized and inadequately addressed.

This is a major public health issue, for older adults and also for the many middle-aged adults experiencing hearing loss. At this point, we know quite a lot about: [Read more…]

Q&A: How to Prevent, Detect, & Treat Dehydration in Aging Adults

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH 39 Comments

Q: How can we get my older mother to drink more water? She is susceptible to urinary tract infections and seems to be often dehydrated no matter what we do. We were also wondering if coffee and tea are okay, or should they be avoided to reduce dehydration?

A: Dehydration is indeed an important problem for older adults. It can be common even when it’s not hot outside.

Helping an older person increase her fluid intake, as you’re trying to do, is one of the best ways to reduce the risk of dehydration.

Now how to actually do this? Studies — and practical experience — suggest that the best approaches include: [Read more…]

5 Top Causes of Sleep Problems in Aging, & Proven Ways to Treat Insomnia

by Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH 102 Comments

What should you do if an older person complains of not sleeping well at night?

Experts do believe that “normal aging” brings on some changes to sleep. (See my previous post for more on this.) Basically, older adults tend to get sleepy earlier in the evening, and tend to sleep less deeply than when they were younger.

So it’s probably not realistic to expect that as you get older, you’ll sleep as long or as soundly as when you were younger.

That said, although aging by itself does change sleep, it’s also quite common for older adults to develop health problems that can cause sleep disturbances. So when your older relatives say they aren’t sleeping well, you’ll want to help them check for these. Figuring out what’s going on is always the first step in being able to improve things.

And remember, getting enough good quality sleep helps maintain brain health, physical health, and mood.

Recently, I did a little research to identify the top causes of sleep problems in older adults. In this article, I’ll share what I found out. I’ll also tell you about what approaches have been proven to work, to help treat insomnia and sleep problems in older adults.

Last but not least, if you (or your older relative) have experienced the very common combination of waking up to pee at night and difficulty sleeping, I highly recommend listening to this podcast episode, which features a geriatrician who is an expert on this: 092- Interview: Addressing Nighttime Urination & Insomnia in Aging.

5 Common Causes of Sleep Problems in Older Adults

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Home Care vs. Home Health

5 Common Causes of Sleep Problems in Older Adults

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