Jim, Author at Senior Care Central

About Jim

CFO - Senior Care Central, LLC

Guest Blog: Do You Know – How Patient Education Can Help Chronic Disease Management?

Healthcare facilities all around the world often face difficulty in treating patients with chronic diseases and look for ways to make it easy for patients to live with it. Chronic disease management by educating the patients either via online school or through regular sessions is known to an effective way of inculcating in them an awareness of how they can play part in coping with their health conditions. Patient education for chronic disease management helps in empowering them and taking actions that will enable them to achieve their health goals. Here is everything you need to know about educating patients for chronic disease management:

What Exactly is Chronic Disease Management?

Chronic disease management (CDA) is support and care to assist the patients having chronic diseases. It teaches them skills, gives them the knowledge and resources that they need to manage their daily life in a better way. This often includes regular visits from a family physician, other care providers, or referrals to specialized programs and services. The skills that are usually taught vary with diseases. Chronic diseases commonly include diabetes, asthma, chronic kidney disease, arthritis, depression, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

What are the Key Elements of Good Chronic Disease Management?

To be more effective, good chronic disease management should offer support and care that is proactive, team-based, and must be well integrated with the primary health care provider (e.g. your family physician, etc.). It must be easily accessible and should well-coordinated. It should be focused on adopting a healthy lifestyle and overall well being of the patient. CDM aims to encourage the patient to take care of themselves and involves family to encourage them to extend their support to their loved ones suffering from some serious health issues. It helps the patient to live a healthier and happier life by teaching them to cope up with their health condition.

How Patient’s Engagement and Education is Beneficial for the CDM?

Chronic disease management sessions are usually patient-centric. Since their aim is to enable patients to take care of themselves, the patient’s constant engagement is what makes it an absolute success. It is easy to keep the patient under observation as the healthcare provider can keep a constant check of what the patient is eating etc. or can control his routine. However, CDM does not have this privilege, rather their work is to train patients to follow a healthy lifestyle even in the absence of their healthcare provider. Patient’s knowledge and the urge to a better life is what helps them to live the disease but in a happier and healthier way.

When to Begin With the CDM?

Chronic disease management starts way before the patient is actually diagnosed with an illness. The primary health care provider, through regular checkups, encourages patients to take preventive healthcare measures by adopting healthy habits. Through such precautionary measures, the early onset of the disease can be mitigated.

What Do Patients Learn From CDM?

CDM helps the patient to differentiate between major and minor health-related issues and enables them to differentiate between both. For Example, if a person has a cardiovascular disease, through CDM he will be able to learn that what he should do in case of minor chest pain. Either he should instantly rush to the hospital or should talk to his healthcare provider on phone. Having knowledge of one’s health condition will enable them to make a better and timely decision and will save their money and time too.

Besides, knowing at what time you should be taking your medicine and what should you eat will make it easy for the people around you to extend their support, love, and care towards you. It will keep you going with your life, the way it is.

To Sum it Up!

You might have heard the cliché ‘where there is a will, there is a way’ and this how chronic disease management works. Involving the patient in their health care routine and talking and guiding them throughout the process is likely to give them a ray of hope. It is surely the best possible way of dealing with chronic disease. It just not eases their pain but also keeps them motivated to opt for a better and healthier lifestyle every day.

By Jim|2025-01-02T13:01:20-05:00January 16th, 2025|Dr. Mauk's Boomer Blog, News Posts|Comments Off

Guest Blog: How to Find the Most Engaging Senior Living for Your Loved One

Making the decision to place your loved one in an assisted living community is never easy. Whether this option was carefully considered over a period of time or a sudden change in health has culminated in this necessary change, it’s important to take the time to find the right community for your loved one. Fortunately, there are ways you can increase your chances of finding a wonderful senior living facility that will tend to your aging loved one’s needs.

● Talk to Your Loved One’s Health Care Provider

Usually, the best people to give recommendations on senior living facilities are physicians and nurses who specialize in providing geriatric care. Because their clients are of advanced age, they will be familiar with the local senior living homes. They can also provide you with information on which facilities tend to provide more engagement and enrichment activities, as well as which ones might only provide basic care. Others in your local community or church group might also have the information you need to get started on your search for the perfect assisted living community.

● Consider Ratio of Providers to Residents

While it’s not impossible to provide an enriching environment within larger assisted living facilities it can be quite difficult, especially if they are understaffed or staffed with underqualified employees. If the ratio of staff to providers is too large for your liking you may want to consider placing your loved one elsewhere. If there are too many residents and not enough caregivers your loved one may not receive the amount of personal attention they need to truly thrive in their new community. You should always go with your intuition when choosing the proper assisted living facility to take care of your loved ones.

● Check Out Their Events Calendar

A good sign of an enriching senior living facility is a full events calendar. Regardless of age, many seniors enjoy having a robust social life. A sense of community and a lively atmosphere can even help loved ones who are living with dementia cope better with their prognosis and disease management. Other countries emphasize the importance of community and inclusion within their care homes. For example, Japan is known for its thriving older population. A Japanese retirement community usually offers a wide range of activities for their residents to participate in, which promotes wellness and a better quality of life. If the facility you are considering offers social outings, group exercise classes, pet therapy, and other opportunities then that is a good sign of a caring and compassionate place for your loved one.

● Take a Tour and Talk With Other Residents and Families

One of the most effective ways to decide if a senior living home may be a good fit for your loved one is to take a tour and observe a typical day at the facility. You will get a pretty good idea of what their sense of community is like, as well as whether most residents are happy and socializing with others throughout the day. Another sign to look for is if the caregivers seem to be engaged with their residents or whether they seem to simply perform their duties as needed. Enriching senior living facilities will usually feature brightly decorated spaces, common areas, games, and other amenities for residents to enjoy.

● Assess Facility for Proper Security Measures

As your loved one ages you want to ensure that the facility you choose for them meets safety standards. Age-related issues like dementia, Alzheimer’s, and memory loss can all lead to unfortunate accidents and tragedies that are usually preventable. Before selecting a senior living community for your loved one be sure to run down a safety standards checklist. You’ll want to see that the facility has brightly lit hallways, multiple fire detectors throughout the premises, secured entrance and exit points, as well as handrails and CCTV. While it’s important to provide residents with enriching and stimulating activities, your loved one’s safety is tantamount.

Finding the right senior living facility for your aging loved one can be challenging, both figuratively and emotionally. Fortunately, with a bit of time and patience, you can find a wonderfully engaging senior living facility to meet your loved one’s health needs and provide them with a wonderful quality of life.

By Jim|2025-01-02T13:00:20-05:00January 14th, 2025|Dr. Mauk's Boomer Blog, News Posts|Comments Off

4 Ways to Turn Your Walk Into a Workout

While senior fitness offerings continue to explode in gyms around the country, the age-old tradition of simply ‘going for a walk’ still touts loads of health benefits, especially for older adults.

Brisk walking a offers low-impact activity that is relatively simple, can be done most anywhere, is fun to do with friends, and is easily modifiable to increase calorie burn. In addition to strengthening your bones and muscles, routine walking can also help prevent lifestyle conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure, as well as improve your balance, coordination, and even your mood.

If you are looking for quick ways to take your daily walk to the next level, don’t miss these expert tips:

Speed Up
The best exercise is that which gets your heart rate up to at least 55 to 85% of your MHR (maximum heart rate). The formula for MHR = 220 – your age. So if you are 65, for example, your maximum heart rate is around 155. Speeding up your walk so your heart rate climbs over 109 (70% of 155) for at least 10 minutes is going to count as good aerobic exercise that is helping strengthen your heart muscle.

Climb Hills
Walking up an incline naturally requires the body to work harder and use up more energy. This can help you build endurance over time and tone muscle groups in your legs you weren’t previously engaging. If you are concerned about a weak knee, reduce lateral knee movement and prevent discomfort with a knee brace specifically designed for walking.

Change Terrain
Instead of doing your usual walk around the roads in your neighborhood, head to a local trail and take a hike. Hiking up and downhill will burn more calories as well as pose a greater challenge to your balance and coordination skills. Exercising like this in nature has also been shown to boost feelings of attentiveness and positivity.

Add Intervals
Incorporate more intervals of high-intensity activity into your walk and you can both improve your endurance and aerobic capacity as well as give your metabolism a boost. 5 minutes of brisk walking punctuated with 30 seconds of squats, lunges, or crunches, followed by another 5 minutes of walking and then 1 minute of jogging and so on and so forth also spices up your walking routine and makes it a little more fun.