Month: March 2016

Tai Chi and Heart Disease

Tai chi is a favorite type of exercise offered to older adults because it requires only slow, gentle movement and deep breathing. Tai chi helps improve balance, an important benefit to help prevent falls and their related injuries. Some more recent evidence also suggests that tai chi may also promote cardiovascular health by slowing heart rate and lowering blood pressure.

Ask Your Doctor if This Ad Is Right for You

The health care industry spent $14 billion on advertising in 2014, according to Kantar Media, a jump of nearly 20 percent since 2011. That includes over-the-counter medications, but not sponsorships (the Super Bowl had two health care systems as partners). While magazine advertising has dropped off somewhat with the withering of the publishing industry, television advertising has risen 55 percent for hospitals and 30 percent for prescription drugs in that period.

This article, not specifically directed toward older adults, examines advertising trends that attempt to drive people with good health insurance toward expensive prescription drugs and treatment programs. Many of these advertisements occur on television during popular programs such as presidential debates and sports events like the Super Bowl. Many of the pricey drugs advertised are available in much cheaper generic brands.

But as the volume and spending on advertising increases, health economists and doctors are raising concerns about the trend, which they say increases prices and encourages patients to seek out more expensive and, often, inappropriate treatment.

Using the Arts to Promote Healthy Aging

across the country, the arts in their myriad forms are enhancing the lives and health of older people — and not just those with dementia— helping to keep many men and women out of nursing homes and living independently. With grants from organizations like the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Institute on Aging, incredibly dedicated individuals with backgrounds in the arts have established programs that utilize activities as diverse as music, dance, painting, quilting, singing, poetry writing and storytelling to add meaning, joy and a vibrant sense of well-being to the lives of older people.

Read about how programs that keep people creatively engaged in the arts are improving the quality of life for many older adults.

Why living in a 55-plus community may be better for your health

When my husband and I decided to move 2,000 miles away for retirement, we had to decide whether to buy a house or enter a retirement community in our new city. We decided on a retirement community because we didn’t want to have to bother with chores such as mowing the lawn and cleaning out the gutters. Only after we had been here for a while did we realize how much easier it is to meet people and to stay socially active in a retirement community than it would have been in a house.

This article well describes how living in a senior-oriented community can improve quality of life for older adults. There’s also information here on CCRCs, continuing-care retirement communities, which offer “a range of long-term options that, in addition to independent town homes or apartments, can include on-site assisted-living facilities, memory care units for residents who develop dementia, and nursing homes.”

Entering just about any senior community can involve many rules and regulations, so be sure to read over and understand everything before you sign a contract.

The $1,000 Shoes

Joyce Wadler confesses:

I just paid $1,000 for a pair of orthopedic shoes. I was forced to do this because as one gets older, one’s feet often get wider, and designers, concerned as they are with cultivating older shoppers, offer shoes that look like boats… . When I was in my 20s and saw older women in these ugly shoes, I wondered what made them buy them. Now I understand that it was the same thing that made them go out with unsuitable men: availability. You search and search and there’s nothing out there. After a while you say: “I can’t take it. Just let me find something I can make do with. I don’t care if it’s not perfect, just let it get me through the Kornberg destination funeral.”

I haven’t worn anything but flat shoes for probably 15 years now. My problem wasn’t my feet; it was my back. At some point you just have to decide which is more important, vanity or comfort.

And here’s another confession, perhaps related: I haven’t worn a dress or skirt in about the same length of time. Pants are just so much more comfortable, and they cover my worst feature, my large calves. Also, it’s much easier to find flat shoes to go with pants than flat shoes that go with skirts.

And thank heaven for retirement, which has rendered all these considerations moot. I never go anywhere that requires an outfit dressier than nice pants (though I prefer jeans), and I’ll even wear my open-toe sandals, which fit amazingly well, in winter if I can’t get away with comfortable athletic shoes.

I do admit, though, that sometimes even those comfortable athletic shoes cost way more than I think they should. But nowhere near $1,000.