Videos from Brookville Family Care

Some simple steps that you can take to reduce your risk of becoming sick during the holiday season include getting the flu vaccine, good hand washing and proper, safe food preparation. Flu vaccine is recommended for all adults and children over the age of six months. Good hand hygiene is essential in preventing the spread of bacterial and viral illnesses such as the common cold. Be sure to wash your hands with soap under running water for at least 20 seconds. In regards to food preparation, be sure to do simple things to prevent the risk of food poisoning and bacterial illness. Wash your fruits and vegetables, use cooking thermometers and cook meats to proper temperatures and don’t cross contaminate your foods; keep raw meats away from other foods and be sure to wash cutting boards, utensils and counter tops with hot soapy water. Always remember to refrigerate perishable foods within two hours after they’ve been out.

Rest and proper hygiene are very key to keeping someone healthy during the holiday season. Hand washing is important at preventing the spread of illnesses. The winter season is peak time for influenza and other viral illnesses like the common cold and the easiest thing you can do to prevent the spread of these diseases and viruses is to wash your hands frequently. Proper rest which for most people is an average seven to eight hours of sleep per night is critical for your overall health and wellbeing throughout the year. It is especially important during times of high stress like the holiday season. Lack of sleep can leave you feeling rundown, compromise your body’s immune system and make you more irritable.

Be sure to keep moving. Physical activity is a step you can take to benefit your health during the holidays any time of the year. Some simple ideas for staying active this holiday season include parking your car further away from the entrance and taking the steps instead of elevator while doing your holiday shopping. It’s also important to schedule time to exercise, make it a part of your daily routine. Try to get at least 30 minutes of physical activity most days of the week. If you choose to drink alcohol this holiday season, do so in moderation. One idea to decrease the amount of alcohol you drink would be to alternate between alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. If you find it difficult to stop once you’ve started drinking, then go to the party with a plan to stick to non-alcoholic drinks the whole time. Don’t forget to always use a designated driver. In regard to eating during the holiday, you don’t have to go without your favorite holiday treats but try to be mindful of the amount you are eating. Try to eat healthy foods before going to the party so when you are at the party you will be less likely to overindulge on all the less-healthy food options that are found at typical holiday gatherings.

Holiday stressors come in all shapes and sizes. Some examples include family members who put you on edge, too much to do in too little time and worrying about over eating and gaining weight. To handle your holiday stressors ask yourself what makes you feel the most pressure or the most irritable. Then think about what choices you have and how you can make the stress more manageable. Consider declining the invitation to the holiday gathering you no longer enjoy. Consider not baking all those cookies you used to make. It’s always best to be prepared. Don’t procrastinate, get your holiday shopping started early and be sure to get plenty of rest and hopefully you be able to enjoy your time with family and friends this holiday season.

According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control), a senior adult is anyone age 55 or older. As we get older, our body requires food to maintain the same functions and so the biggest guideline for a senior adult is to get as much bang for their buck out of the bite they put in their mouth. So, if you can eat colorful fruits and vegetables that are packed with nutrients and vitamins, and if you can eat low-fat, high-protein proteins, that will help maintain your body health without packing on extra weight. The other thing that seniors need to be very aware of, is that as you get older, your body is less able to maintain your fluid balance and you lose some of your drive to drink water and so you have to make a conscious effort to increase the amount of water that you drink in order to keep your body well-hydrated and you need that water in order to transport nutrients into your cells and to take the waste products away.

Some of the supplements that most seniors should look at taking are supplements that include vitamin D, calcium and vitamin B complex. Vitamin B is what your body uses to turn food into energy so you can continue to perform the tasks you would like to. Vitamin D and calcium not only are good for maintaining bone health, which gets more difficult as you get older, your body loses some of the calcium and becomes thinner, less sturdy. Calcium and vitamin D will help you protect those bones and reduce your risk for fractures as you age.

As our parents age, they need help navigating the health care system and becoming that navigator with them can be a difficult transition. The first thing to remember is that you have become part of your loved one’s health care team, so you need to get to know the rest of the people on the team: Know their providers, know the people who come into their home to help take care of them, know the way they all interact together and the services they provide for that member of your family. One of the hardest transitions is to remember the person you are helping is used to being an independent, fully functional adult who makes decisions on their own and now you’re helping them make those decisions. If you can include the family member as much as possible in making the decisions and being part of the planning, it usually makes things easier for them and it makes it an easier adjustment for both of you. The other thing I encourage with my patients here at the office and with my family members is to begin this conversation with your family early. The best way to be part of the health care team for someone you love is to know how they feel about the decisions about their own health care decisions and about the things that will affect their health care. Start the discussions with your family early. Let them know how you feel about specialists, and aggressive treatments and end of life care.

I have 10 rules for senior medication safety. The first is to know you are part of your own health team, and as part of that health care team, it is your responsibility to know information about your medicine. You need to have a complete list of all the medications that you take: Prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, vitamins and supplements and why you take them. You need to understand why you take them and be able to talk to the providers you see about that. You need to know what each of your medications is for, be able to read your label. If you get a prescription from the pharmacy and you don’t understand what it says, that’s the time to ask questions. Your pharmacist can help you understand what the medicine is you’re taking and how best to do it. Ask questions. Nobody minds if you ask us why we’re giving it to you, what to expect when you take it or if there are any special information or steps you need to do to take it correctly. Never take another person’s medication. Just because it works for something that sounds similar to the condition you have or the symptoms that you’re having, doesn’t mean that it’s the right medication for you or that it won’t interfere with the medications you’re already taking, so never take somebody else’s medication. Take your medicine exactly the way it’s prescribed, don’t add or subtract pills because you think there is too much or too little – talk to your provider first and store your medicines safely. For most medicines, that means keep them in a dry, safe place, out of the reach of children. There are some medicines that have to be stored in a refrigerator or that need to be stored in the dark. In that case, you have to make those special considerations, but most things just need to be in a dry, safe place

Shingles is actually a residual from having had chicken pox in your childhood. The virus that causes chicken pox lays dormant inside your body and waits until a time when your immune system is not as strong as it had been. You will then get shingles. Not everybody who has had chicken pox gets shingles, but a fair percentage does. Shingles is a virus and so the treatment we do is to decrease the symptoms you have to make you feel more comfortable, to help you get through the period of being sick. Better is to prevent the shingles. There is a vaccine you can get through your local provider that will decrease the severity of shingles if you do get it and will decrease the likelihood that you’re going to get something called post herpetic neuralgia, which is the long-term pain that you can have months to years after the shingles episode has actually resolved and gone away.