Guest Blog: Diabetic Seniors: Steps to Staying Healthy While Social Distancing
During COVID-19 and social distancing, it’s important for seniors — especially seniors with diabetes — to make sure they’re doing everything in their power to maintain healthy, active lifestyles. It’s not easy to keep up the motivation, but there are a few steps you can take to dramatically reduce your chance of developing diabetic foot ulcers, and other unpleasant side effects of diabetes.
Am I at risk for a diabetic foot ulcer?
Everyone with diabetes is at risk for developing a diabetic foot ulcer, and you’re more likely to develop them if you’re older. About 15% of diabetics get a diabetic foot ulcer. Of those, around one-third of those patients develop diabetic foot ulcers. As patients get older, those odds increase and 40% of patients who have had a diabetic foot ulcer will develop another one at some point in their life.
Cooking at home
You’re probably cooking more at home, so why not make the most of it? Good nutrition is essential both for managing diabetes symptoms and helping diabetic wounds heal.
- Protein is an especially important nutrient for wound-healing, so make sure you’re getting plenty of beans, eggs, fish, and tofu.
- Research has shown that the Meditteranean diet has an especially positive effect on diabetes. Look up your favorite Greek recipes that have a good balance of fresh produce, fish, and olive oil, and very low carbohydrates, sugar, and red meat.
Staying active
Staying active can play a huge role in ensuring that diabetes patients keep their symptoms in check. Gyms are closed, so what to do?
If you’ve ever considered setting up a home gym, now is the time! Studies have shown that resistance training has substantive benefits, so think about investing in light weights or resistance bands. They don’t have to be super heavy, they just have to be heavy enough to make your muscles feel the burn. And if you’ve never used weights before, lifting soup cans or water bottles is a good start.
We all want to get outside, but many don’t yet feel comfortable going places that may have crowds. Luckily, many hiking trails have started to re-open, and hiking can provide an easy way to remain active while social distancing. Hiking is a great form of cardio, and has been shown to have a positive effect on blood glucose levels.
Guest Blog: Healthcare tools and technology that help seniors continue to live at home
Advanced technologies in the healthcare niche such as GPS, motion-sensors and social networks that are senior focused might help seniors keep living comfortable in their homes. Medicaid and Medicare – two of the most powerful government agencies in the US – are aiming to develop cost efficient alternatives for nursing homes and assisted living facilities. Many tech-savvy families wish for their loved ones to live nearby and thus be able to balance their personal lifestyles with caregiving. Fortunately, technology is here to help.
General costs for assisted living and nursing home care keep increasing. The rates are incredibly high, whereas the general cost of at-home senior care has boosted with less than 1% in the last 5 years. At a national scale, the median cost for nursing homes increased to roughly $85,000 in 2013 as opposed to $63,000 in 2012. Furthermore, nearly 90% of citizens in the US wish to live alone in their homes rather than be placed in an assisted living facility.
Advanced technology makes caregiving a lot easier
Even though IoT (the internet of things), mobile devices, analytics, big data and cloud-based services allow nearly every age category to make use of technology for improved health, it is it is quite obvious that seniors can also reap benefits. That’s certainly good news since people with ages above 65 (41 million in the US), will represent one fifth of US’s population by 2050. By then, the US will have 19 million people above 85. If the country chooses to start using advanced technology now, things will look pretty good in 35 years when the lifestyle of the average senior will be pretty comfortable and laid-back.
Seniors are concerned about their financial, emotional and physical safety
A lot of seniors today fear for their financial, physical and emotional safety. They’re often aware that if their loved ones live nearby, they’ll somehow be compelled to look after them. Fortunately, technology comes to the rescue and eases the job of an adult to take care of his/her aging parent. Family members will be relieved of the burden because savvy gadgets and remote devices allow them to keep a close eye on their loved ones without having to check on them every single day. Experts agree that if more seniors would be open to using advanced technology, they could enjoy a much comfortable lifestyle by themselves.
However, let’s not forget that today’s seniors didn’t grow up tech-savvy. This means that they might feel uncomfortable using technology; because of this developers must consider crafting gadgets that are efficient but also easy to use. Twenty years from now seniors will probably use gadgets just as well as youngsters; but before that happens, the following should be checked out.
- Sensors – advanced patient monitoring. These devices can easily be installed around the house. They send signals alerting caregivers of prospective falls, injuries or skipped meals
- GPS tracking technology – excellent for keeping track of a loved one’s whereabouts.
- Apps – there’s a range of apps you can use to keep an eye on an aging parent. Both communication and monitoring apps are tools caregivers can use to watch over their loved ones. Among some of the most well-known we should mention Philips Lifeline, TrackerAssist, Red Panic Button and 5Star Service.
- Remote monitoring tools – these are targeted at seniors needing regular monitoring. There are lot of devices nowadays that monitor blood glucose, heart rate and blood pressure.
- Telehealth – the ability of modern telehealth systems is to use standard video-conferencing and phone systems to connect senior patients with nurse practitioners, physicians and mental health specialists. Furthermore, recent research highlights some pretty advanced technologies; these are meant to change the way seniors get regular checkups.
Seniors have realistic chances of living comfortably in their homes in spite of their health issues. Advanced technology can help them. The tools currently available are quite useful and innovative; however, caregivers must teach them how to use them. Very few seniors find residential care homes and assisted living facilities a viable lifestyle alternative. They don’t want to leave the comfort of their homes, but they’re quite aware that they can’t do everything alone either.