Posts Tagged ‘Health care’
Choices for Senior Living after Retirement

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When seniors reach retirement age they have a number of options open to them regarding their choice of lifestyle after retirement. In addition to remaining in their preretirement community or aging in place, they can consider other options. Among those options are a variety of retirement communities that include active adult communities, retirement resorts, independent living for seniors, senior apartments, and retirement resorts. In terms of options that provide a wide variety of health care seniors can choose assisted living facilities, nursing homes, continuing care retirement communities, and facilities that provide Alzheimer’s care. Whatever their choice of facility, seniors need to remember that taking their prescriptions as instructed by their physicians is of utmost important to maintaining their senior health.
After senior choose their option for retirement, they need to keep in mind that they need to maintain access to information on those topics that are of critical importance to seniors. The information they need includes senior health, caregiving, money management, real estate, and travel designed for seniors. In particular the information on senior health should include resources that explain Medicare and Medicaid, as well as services that are available to seniors.
Can Heart Disease Be Reversed?

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As you probably already know, here in the USA, heart disease is the leading cause of death. More than 459,000 Americans die of cardiovascular disease every year. That is larger than the number of Americans who died in World War II over a period of three years and 10 months. The financial cost of the casualties from the ‘cardiovascular war’ have been estimated at over $450 billion counting health care services, medications and lost productivity. Among the leaders in costs are the invasive surgeries that include coronary artery bypass surgeries, angioplasties, and cardiac catheterizations. Without question these surgical procedures are modern medical miracles for the folks that really need them. The next question that needs to be asked is how can folks live so that they preempt the need to use these extreme means.
In reality, most folks can prevent the onset of cardiovascular disease by choosing a heart healthy lifestyle. For starters, what we eat has a major impact on the health of our hearts. If we limit our intake of refined carbohydrates, sugar, and saturated fats, but stock up on lean protein, fruits and vegetables with lots of fiber, and moderate amounts of healthy fats like olive oil, then we will be a third of the way toward a heart healthy lifestyle. The second part of the solution is exercise every day of the week if possible. For example 30 minutes of brisk walking can provide the exercise needed. Finally, supplementing daily with a full spectrum multivitamin and mineral product and complementing it with fish oil capsules and coenzyme Q10 will complete the steps to living a heart healthy lifestyle that will benefit cardiovascular health.
Preempt the Big 3 Diseases or Not?

- Image by lachshand via Flickr
With all the smoke and mirrors in the media about reforming health care maybe its time to take a new look or think out of our usual health care box. It turns out that there is a lot that ordinary folks can do to prevent or preempt diseases from ever getting started. This goes double for folks as we get older, because of the special issues that affect senior health. We can choose our lifestyle so that we head in a direction with a high probability of attaining greater health or in an opposite direction with an equal probability of coming down with one of the big three diseases. The big three killer diseases are in order diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. Four straight forward lifestyle changes can reduce the probability of contracting one of the big three by 80%. These lifestyle changes will not raise your health insurance premiums, but in some cases may actually lower them.
The big four lifestyle changes are within the reach of most folks, but they do require serious commitment. They are not monumental challenges like trying to climb Mt. Everest and return safely. The alternatives for not embracing these changes are higher health insurance premiums for everyone, seriously degraded quality of life and early death. The big four lifestyle changes include eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, maintaining a healthy weight, and not smoking. As one motivation coach put it, “Where attention goes, energy flows, and the result shows”. This is something that we can do for ourselves and our country, because a healthy people make a country healthy and prosperous.

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