Enjoy with Seniors Even if It’s Raining Outside - Comfort Keepers San Mateo

If it is summer and it is all very sunny and shining outside then it is alright and you can go outside any time for a stroll down the park or a long drive to a distant favorite location to chill! But what if it is raining outside and you can’t have your outdoors? Does that mean that all the fun is over? No, of course not! The fun must go on!

Here at from Comfort Keepers Senior Home Care Services we have come up with some very intriguing and fun activities that you can do with seniors, if you can not go outside for reason like rain or something similar. Because staying engaged and staying active is very crucial to senior wellbeing. Moreover, if your loved one is suffering from dementia, depression or other such mental and psychological issues then the importance of having such activities increases a lot.

Follow these interesting ideas from Comfort Keepers Senior Home Care Services to enjoy your day inside, if you have to. These will make your day just as cheerful and brighter like any other outdoor events.

Play Games

In rainy days when it is raining cats and dogs just put on your happy pants and start playing various indoor games with your seniors loved ones! Various board games can be a brilliant idea. Old school board games like monopoly, scrabble, chess, dominoes etc. all these may work just fine and can even work as a very good diversion from the usual. On the other hand you can also try playing some multiplayer video games with your loved ones. Comfort Keepers Senior Home Care Services caregivers always engage with our loved seniors in such playful manner through the Interactive Caregiving approach.

Become an Artist

What’s the harm after all if you end up just painting the whole canvas blue or red. Your are painting all the same. So, just bring on whatever you have in the house that you can use for your artistic endeavour today and start painting, sculpting, moulding, or even origami can be a great option. You may also try writing a sweat simple short story to read out to each other. All these artistic endeavours are bound to make you feel good and invigorated through allowing you to feel the bliss of the creation process itself. Comfort Keepers Senior Home Care Services always encourage artistic involvements for our loved seniors.

Take a Glance at Your Library

Nothing can be more beneficial for the mind than to get lost in imagination with the help of a very good book. Books take us to faraway lands and even to fairy lands and allow us to experience stuff that otherwise we never could have experienced. So, if you are stuck inside in a rainy day with our loved seniors then take a glance at your library and start reading fun stuff with them. It will not only let you enjoy the time and to sync with each other but it will also enrich and energize the senior minds.

Have Some Meditative and Mindful Time

Okay, it’s raining outside and you can’t go out. But you can surely go inside into the vast ocean of your own consciousness any time. There’s no rain in their! And it is infinite! So, during being stuck indoors without any discernible activity for engagement and enjoyment, just dive deep into your being. Sit in a comfortable position. Even your comfortable rocking chair or sofa would just do great. Grab a cup of tea or coffee. Finish drinking while calming yourself down. And once you have finished your coffee just close your eyes and your are already there deep within the infinite ocean of your being! Comfort Keepers always encourage mindfulness.

Movies and Youtube

You have done your meditation or just not in such a mood to have so solemn a time and you feel like having some light fun! Then having a quality movie time can be an awesome idea. Just pick one that would go with the mood of you and your loved ones and start enjoying with some light snacks around. You will see how time just flies away leaving you with quality memories. Apart from movies you can also try some quality documentaries, educative content or intriguing videos on YouTube.   

So, here you go! With these beautiful ideas from Comfort Keepers Senior Home Care Services at your disposal you will never feel frustrated or out of fun being stuck indoor in a rainy day!

And for any concern or information regarding senior care and home health care support do not hesitate to contact Comfort Keepers San Mateo Senior Home Care Services.

Some Fun and Easy Exercises for Seniors - Comfort Keepers San Mateo

Some Fun and Easy Exercises for Seniors

There’s no end of benefits that one can gain from doing regular physical exercises no matter in whatever age groups they belong to.

However, with age exercise options start to decrease but the importance of it increases proportionately. So, in this circumstances we from Comfort Keepers have come up with a list of fun and easy yet very effective ways of doing exercises for our loved seniors. By doing these according to their health and bodily conditions our loved seniors will be able to reap the benefits of physical exercise for a prolonged, healthy, happy and independent life.

Physical exercises are basically of four categories based on the purpose they are meant to fulfil. The categories are - Endurance, Strengthening, Flexibility and Balance.

Doing exercises from all the categories in a balanced manner according to your physical condition will take you a long way in leading a happy and healthy life. This will also help you to stay fit and avoid injuries, control blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems. It will also help you to control diabetes and body weight. Apart from physical benefits these fun, easy and simple exercises have a huge lot of psychological benefits too.

Here are the four categories of exercises described and exemplified for our loved seniors to follow and practice.

Endurance

Endurance exercises are those that increases your stamina gradually by increasing your heart rate and strengthening your breaths. These exercises will make physical labor such as faster walking, rising uphill etc. easier for you. This will also help in performing your daily activities easily.

Strengthening

Strengthening exercises are those that strengthens your bones, muscles and joints; and increases your overall physical strength. This category of exercises includes- weights, tubes, resistance bands etc.

Flexibility

This type of exercise helps to increase the flexibility of your muscles and joints and facilitates easy movement of your physique. These often work as complementary to endurance and strengthening exercises.

Balance

Balance exercises are a must for seniors to prevent falls and other such injuries. Balance exercises aim at improving the overall balance of physical movements so that your day to day activities remain smooth as you age.
Now let us have a look at the fun and easy exercises themselves that would allow you to have all the benefits of all the four categories of exercises.

Fun and Easy Exercises

Walking

The first of the list can none other than the simple brisk walking. Walking is the easiest yet most effective physical fitter among all the physical exercise types. It fulfils the role of all the four categories of exercises.
It is easy to start and easy for seniors to continue even very late in life. Just be aware of using the right kind of shoes and do some stretching after each walk to avoid injuries to your muscles. Start with few minutes each day at first then gradually increase up to 30 to even 60 minutes, if your can manage.

  

Swimming

Another great fun and easy exercise for seniors is swimming. Swimming strengthens the bones and muscles along with increasing your overall stamina. It also decreases stress and depression. It is a great exercise for women to avoid postmenopausal bone loss.

Along with swimming you can also incorporate water aerobics for increased strength, balance and a full body workout.

Yoga

Yoga is an excellent system of working out that incorporates all the four categories of exercises. Through various poses and ‘asanas’ it stretches, strengthens and balances the full physique. Apart from the physical, yoga has a huge lot of metaphysical help to offer.

Seniors should begin with some easier poses for the beginners and then gradually move on to practice the harder ones.

Tai Chi

Tai Chi is similar to yoga but different in postures and movements. It focuses on meditation and drives energy from slow pose to pose movement. Like yoga it also strengthens the body and increases the balance and flexibility.

Gardening

Gardening can be a very fun way of getting your daily dose of physical exercises. Through various activities required to do gardening your body will have mostly all the necessary movements that is needed to strengthen your muscles and to make them flexible and balanced.

Simple Aerobics

Easy, simple and fun aerobics for seniors include dancing, water aerobics, chair aerobics, balancing on a ball and even walking and swimming. These along with some strengthening exercises is a proven way standing against falls. Besides, these also help in controlling the symptoms of Alzheimer’s or dementia.
So, here you have a complete list of easy and fun exercises for seniors to do for increased strength, balance, endurance and flexibility.

Start practicing these and have a healthy, happy and independent life as you age. For any additional help with senior care and healthy aging do not hesitate to contact Comfort Keepers San Mateo.  

High Blood Pressure: A Major Risk Factor for Dementia - Comfort Keepers San Mateo

From this post you will know how high blood pressure increases the risks of getting memory loss and other cognitive problems; and how it may gradually lead to Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia. You will also know about the importance of staying away from and controlling high blood pressure. And finally you will get some introductory insights into the dos and don'ts of high blood pressure control and prevention.

You can take this as a manual on the relationship between high blood pressure and dementia from the Comfort Keepers; for our loved seniors to ensure healthy aging for them.

Various studies including one in Lancet Neurology has concluded that high blood pressure can gradually weaken the nervous system and the brain by causing damage to the arteries and the brain tissue in various ways. High blood pressure slowly affects the cognitive system. Although at first the effects do not become noticeable with the onset of declining years it suddenly becomes prominent and often may become too late to take effective actions. Reports suggest that high blood pressure can even make a brain prematurely age up to seven years earlier than the appropriate time.

How High Blood Pressure Brings Cognitive Decline in Seniors

Our brain consists of two layers. The outer layer, known as the cortex, is made up of grey matter and contains brain cells that plays an important role in memory, perception, attention and other cognitive functions. There’s another layer of white matter that contains axons. Axons are sort of biological wires that transfer information from one part of the brain to other areas. Studies have found out that blood pressure is responsible for the damage in both the layers of the brain causing memory loss, Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia.

The process is quite apparent. Due to high blood pressure the arteries become stiffened and it becomes very problematic for the brain cells to get adequate nourishment. Often due to blood pressure some mini strokes can occur that cause damage to the brain tissue. These mini strokes gradually make the damage more dangerous which leads to more severe strokes and more severe memory loss or dementia. This can also lead to vascular dementia, the second most common type of dementia after Alzheimer’s disease.

Have Treatment as Early as Possible

The longer you remain with high blood pressure the chances will become stronger for you to get cognitive malfunctions. Therefore, the moment you get diagnosed with high blood pressure you should start adopting adequate measures to have a grip over our blood pressure. You have to make some positive lifestyle changes and will also have to take some prescribed medication in this purpose.

Preventive Measures for High Blood Pressure

Healthy and balanced numbers for blood pressure is 120/80. So, your target should be to always remain under those healthy limits as preventing high blood pressure is much easier than treating it.

In preventing high blood pressure small lifestyle changes can go a long way. Here are some major such lifestyle changes that you can adopt to prevent blood pressure.

●     Maintain a healthy body weight.

●     Eat a diet that is heart-friendly and contains lots of fresh vegetables and fruits.

●     Have an eye on you salt intake. Be aware of the processed foods.

●     Have regular physical exercise.

●     Have extremely limited amount of alcohol, if you have to.

●     Quit smoking altogether, if you do.

These basic health guidelines for staying away from high blood pressure will make a huge difference in maintaining a healthy blood pressure as you age. So, follow these tips and stay healthy and happy with Comfort Keepers San Mateo.

5 Things to Consider for Ensuring the Bright Future of Ageing - Comfort Keepers San Mateo

 America is greying. The baby boomers are turning 65 at the rate 10,000 every single day. Longevity is the latest marvel in the history of humanity. We are living a much healthier and longer life than any other epoch in the history.

But the question that arises is- are we prepared to tackle this mass aging of America?

The current state of affairs point toward a straight no! Just as the society and its institutions were not prepared to tackle the baby boom, in the same manner we are not yet even close enough at being prepared for the age wave that has already started to take place.

So, here from Comfort Keepers San Mateo we have done a thorough research on the available literature on this issue and have come up with 5 action points to focus on while trying to cope up with this unique challenge known as the greying of America.

Reshaping the Concept of Aging

The first thing is to essentially but dramatically alter the perception of age and ageing. A predominant part of ageing is vastly psychological and each and every part of our social structure plays a part in shaping this preconceived idea or concept.

Due to this debilitating concept although the medical science has managed to prolong our lives to more years but our social, political, and religious institutions have not yet been able to make any real use of these added years of our senior lives. What we need in this regard is a total reinvention in the approach towards the elderly population.

We have to change the processes of the youth centric model of volunteerism in order to create more scope for the elderly to participate. We have to reorient the workforce to put the experience, knowledge and wisdom gained over the years by our loved seniors to productive endeavors. We have to make a wealth out of this huge retired population that is currently wasting their invaluable years in front the TV set.

Boosting Health Science Innovation

We here from Comfort Keepers have been saying it for a long time now that in order to avoid the coming pandemic of diseases related with aging we have to bolster innovation in the field of health science with a special focus on Alzheimer’s. Otherwise the coming age wave can literally cause an epidemic out of the diseases of aging.

We have to boost up scientific breakthroughs in order to prevent, treat, eliminate and cure the diseases of aging like cancer, dementia, heart diseases, diabetes, Parkinson’s and others. Alzheimer’s certainly requires more than average attention simply because of the fact that an astounding number of seniors are suffering from it at present and more are being affected every day. Besides, it’s being 100% fatal without any cure till now.

On the other hand we also have to give enough attention on building up more proficient elder care institutions and trained caregivers. Along with it we also have to create a more humanistic, cordial and respectful end of life and palliative care programs for seniors.

Maintaining Productivity Intact into the Senior Years

With a view to turning our loved seniors into national resource we have to develop such processes and programs that would allow them to bring their productivity well into their declining years. We have to create such an environment that would facilitate the view of maturity as an opportunity of reinventing life and the self; as a time of newer explorations and new beginnings.

In this regard community colleges, corporate socially responsible employers and the internet have to be more vigilant in making learning a lifelong process. So that our seniors keep on learning, rebooting and reinventing their skills and knowledge base in a continuous way.

Challenging the Concept of Retirement

Often we come across seniors who are very enthusiastic and in good health feeling frustrated about not being able to take part in productive work and ventures. And with the increased number of seniors in town we will have more such seniors who would do a great job in utilizing their life long experience and wisdom if given proper opportunity.

Therefore, we have to create such scope for our seniors to get involved and have their fair share in the gross production of the community.

We also have to implement affluence tests to determine the eligibility of the “Old age” entitlements like Medicare, social security etc. Otherwise, we would only end up overburdening the younger generation to support such huge numbers.

Avoiding Elder Poverty at a Mass Level 

Although most of our aging seniors do have access to social security and other financial security like retirement plans, personal savings, family inheritance to maintain their financial stability. In spite of that there are more than 25 million baby boomers who have no such financial backups to look forward to when they will face retirement.

In this situation it is of prime importance that we took some serious plans for educating our aging seniors on financial safety issues. We should also encourage to have personal savings.

And if we fail to take adequate measures regarding this then the nation will find it difficult to face the blows of the approaching Mass Elder Poverty.

Now, are we ready to take these actions and to make these changes in order to prepare America for the approaching Age Wave?

It is completely on us to decide!