“Kale smoothie, anyone?” Maybe not…. Good nutrition has always been a mainstay of good health. Indeed, there is growing awareness of the power of food to support healing for a wide variety of conditions. What is less well known is the fact that even very healthy foods can cause health problems when combined with specific…
Does the person you care for seem to have shrunk a bit? Pants are too long? Can’t reach items on their regular shelf? You can see the top of their head? it could be that their bones have become more porous with age. This is called “osteoporosis.” With osteoporosis, bones are less dense and easily…
Many families caring for a seriously ill loved one struggle alone unnecessarily. They miss out on vital support services because they don’t understand what hospice can provide. Home visits by a nurse to manage pain and other difficult symptoms. Home visits by a nursing assistant to bathe your loved one and shampoo hair. Free prescriptions…
Stress has gained a dirty name during the past decades. It’s something we talk about needing to getting rid of, as if it were wholly bad. While chronic stress can be damaging to our health, recent research demonstrates that stress isn’t always a threat to our well-being. In fact, the very things that bring greatest…
If your older loved one snores loudly, he or she likely has sleep apnea: A collapsing of the airways while sleeping that results in mini-suffocations 5–30 times an hour. And, left untreated, this serious condition is a strong contributor to heart-related deaths, type 2 diabetes, dementia, depression, and car accidents. It’s also a huge problem…
“I don’t like that bear on my bed!” A visual hallucination such as this can occur in the later stages of dementia or near the end of life. Some people also have auditory hallucinations—hearing things that others don’t—or feel things that aren’t there, such as string in their mouth or ants on their arm. These…
If your loved one and family have had the conversation about end-of-life wishes, kudos to you! In addition to writing down those wishes in an advance directive, your relative should also share them with his or her health care team. Even if your family member is in perfect health now, that could change at a…
We all quarrel with reality from time to time and wish things were different than they are. Especially now, when life seems unfair. All flights have been cancelled due to the coronavirus and you won’t be able to be with your Dad on his 80th birthday…. Your mom is in an assisted living facility that…
If your relative is taking brand-name prescription drugs, a switch to generic could provide significant savings. Why are brand-name drugs so expensive? It takes a lot of money and time to develop a new drug. In particular, it must be tested to show it works and is safe for humans. Patent laws give an innovator…
If your loved one snores, this may be a sign of “sleep apnea.” All snoring jokes aside, sleep apnea is a serious condition that deprives the brain of oxygen. A person with sleep apnea goes without oxygen for at least 10 seconds, five to 30 (or more) times an hour. It happens because the soft…
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