As we get older, particularly into our 50’s and 60’s, cataracts can become a common eye condition experienced by both men and women. Cataracts are a leading cause of vision loss in the United States, so it’s important to know how to protect your eyes to reduce your risk for cataract and to be able to recognize the signs of a developing cataract. 

Cataract Formation

Like the rest of the body, the eyes and the structures that support the visual system undergo significant change as we age. One of the structures that undergoes the most change is the lens in the eye. The lens of the eye is located behind the pupil and the colored iris. The lens helps to focus images onto the retina, which then transmits the images to the brain. Normally the lens is “crystal clear.” 

Aging, and other medical conditions can cause the lens to become cloudy and yellow. This can cause mildly blurry vision, resulting in changes in your eyesight. If the crystalline lens loses significant transparency and clarity, then a cataract has formed. A cataract is the clouding of the eye’s lens, causing blocks or changes in the passage of light into the eye. 

Residents in senior living communities often delight in receiving visitors, especially when those visitors include children. Even so, it can be quite difficult, emotionally, to bring the kids along to a long term care facility. With a little preparation, patience and compassion, a family’s first visit to an elder care community can be made meaningful for all family members—especially for the elder and grandchildren.

Your aging loved one, who is residing in long term care, may have changed a great deal as a result of their physical and emotional health. They may display different behaviors, personality changes, and memory deficits that even the most well-prepared adult can struggle to see. So, how do you prepare a child for their first visit with a grandparent who is residing in an elder care community?

Prepare the Kids Before they Arrive at the Senior Living Facility

No matter your age or activity level, you reap numerous health benefits from spending time in nature. Not only is time spent outdoors good for physical health, it is especially good for brain health. New research from the fields of psychology, health, medicine, and environmental science consistently shows that, for people of all ages, who spend as little as 15 minutes a day interacting with the natural world, experience lower blood pressure, less frequent headaches, and are at lower risk for anxiety and depression. With so much natural beauty surrounding the Everbrook Senior Living Communities, it’s easy to get your daily dose of “nature’s medicine.”

How The Lack of Time Spent in Nature Takes a Toll on Health

Enough research has been done to strongly indicate that people who spend the least amount of time outdoors have greater detriment to their well-being: higher risk of mental health conditions, obesity, high blood pressure, and other chronic illnesses. There’s even a name for the ill-effects of not spending enough time in nature—it’s called “nature-deficit disorder.” Nature deficiency contributes to the following health issues:

• increased stress
• trouble maintaining focus
• diminished emotional resilience
• deficits in self-expression, creative thinking, and reasoning
• difficulty establishing healthy social connections (at work, in the community)
• increased risk for and/or worsening of chronic illness
• loss of connectedness to nature and one's responsibility for protecting it

Even though nature-deficit disorder is not yet regarded as a medical condition, both conventional and holistic health practitioners recognize the significance of the detrimental health effects stemming from lack of contact with nature. In fact, in Canada, doctors can now prescribe national park passes to patients who are at risk for, or who are struggling with depression, anxiety, and certain other mental and physical health conditions. Many more physicians around the world have come to recognize nature-deficit as a nonclinical syndrome that can impair the emotional, cognitive, and physical functioning of adults and children.

Feeling a sense of purpose or meaning in life is associated with a 19% reduced rate of clinically significant cognitive impairment later, according to findings from a review of evidence led by researchers at University College London (UCL).

The UCL researchers examined several positive psychological constructs (e.g., maintaining a positive mood, being optimistic, having a sense of life purpose) to determine if these constructs have a significant association with reduced risk for dementia and other cognitive impairment in later life. 

The results showed that having purpose and meaning in life were key factors consistently associated with reduced risk of dementia years later:

Since older adults tend to need fewer hours of sleep – around 7 hours a night – than younger people, it might surprise you to learn that sleep deprivation can be quite common in older adults. Not only that, symptoms of sleep deprivation can also be confused for dementia in older adults.

Many people are aware that there is a connection between sleep and brain health. The changes in brain chemistry that occur when we don’t sleep leads to impairment of physical performance, decision making skills, and how well we manage our emotions. Poor quality sleep as well as insufficient hours of sleep makes us sluggish, causes muscle tension and physical fatigue, and can lead to changes in appetite and mood. The longer we go without good quality and sufficient hours of sleep, the more imbalanced brain chemistry and hormones become – and that is not good for the brain.

For older adults, who are less physically resilient to the stresses of poor sleep, the effects on their cognitive abilities can be significant. So much so, family members may wonder if their loved on is showing signs of dementia. 

This month we are celebrating the health benefits of sleep for mind and body! National Sleep Awareness Week is March 13-19, 2022—it’s the perfect time for older adults to learn new ways to improve their sleep routine.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, adult sleep habits were affected in many ways. Some people slept more while others didn’t sleep enough. Many of us were tossing and turning through the night. Additionally, many adults got into some pretty poor sleep habits… staying up late or falling asleep in front of a mobile device. 

Poor-quality sleep is detrimental to the health of the brain and the body. In fact, there’s 25 years of scientific research that supports the health benefits of good sleep hygiene for adults (and kids, too). 

This Valentine’s Day we want to remind you of a special relationship between physical health and level of risk for cognitive decline. You may already be aware that, when you engage in physical activity you are building both physical and mental fitness. What you may not know is there is a “brain-heart-health connection” that influences your risk of cognitive decline: The healthier your heart, the lower your level of risk is for dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). 

What Does a Healthy Brain Require?

The brain-heart-health connection isn’t particularly complex. In a nutshell, a healthy brain requires 3 things:  

1. glucose (the chemical name for sugar) for energy
2. a strong blood supply to carry glucose and oxygen into the brain
3. a healthy diet to provide essential nutrients (vitamins, minerals, healthy fats) that serve as building blocks for brain chemicals such as serotonin and dopamine. 

Look over those items once more time. Numbers 1 and 3 on the list are directly related to your diet---what, how often, and how much you eat. Number 2 – a strong blood supply--is related to heart health. So how does heart health relate to brain health?

Many people, even those who are in good health and eat a balanced, robust and healthy diet, take nutritional supplements. In fact, vitamins, minerals, and herbs are the most widely used over-the-counter products among people of every age and every lifestyle. Many older adults take nutritional supplements and they tend not to inform their physician (or even other family members) they are doing so. Mixing certain nutritional supplements with prescription medicines can result in a dangerous interaction and seniors could be putting their health—or even their life—at risk: Many nutritional supplements alter the way prescription medications work in the body. This can lead to a dangerous situation in which medications do not work as they should for a given medical condition and can result in a life-threatening interaction.

Every physiological process in the body relies upon vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and other compounds that facilitate processes necessary to maintain your physical and emotional health. For people of all ages who eat a variety of healthy foods most of the time, we tend to get the nutrients we need. As we age, however, our bodies change in every respect.

Consequently, we may not digest food as well, can develop food intolerances, may take medications that affect nutrient absorption, and a variety of other factors can affect how effectively nutrients are getting to the places where the body most needs them. This can prompt senior citizens to take nutritional (dietary) supplements purchased over-the-counter.

During the holidays as we gather with family, young and old alike, we may feel concern for a senior family member who is showing signs of difficulty with memory and cognition. While there’s no cure for Alzheimer’s Disease, the leading cause of dementia, engaging your elderly loved one in “brain games” can help to protect brain function, lower the risk for, and even slow the progression of dementia. So, put on your ugly holiday sweaters and gather everyone ‘round for these festive holiday games to stimulate thinking, cognition, recall, and problem-solving. 

Holiday Themed Games for Seniors

Holiday-themed Word Search

Crossword puzzles and other types of word-search games are fantastic activity for sharpening reasoning skills and stimulating multiple areas of the brain. Word searches generally involve using clues to solve a word-puzzle. This stimulates recollection from stored knowledge and memories, uses problem-solving skills, and provides a sense of reward when finding the right word to fit the space. You can find crossword books and games (in the app stores) that cover any theme and are suitable for any level. If your loved one is already struggling with signs of dementia, consider using a crossword designed for school-age children, which will utilize simpler words and clues.

The holiday season can be one of the most difficult times of year for our elderly loved ones. Do you know how to recognize the concerning signs that can indicate your older adult family member is struggling with more than just the holiday blues?

There are several reasons why an elderly family member may experience sadness around the holidays, any of which can be a common part of growing older:

• Widowed within the past year or previous loss of a partner during the holidays
• Caretaking for a partner in declining health
• Coping with their own declining health
• Loss of the ability to drive or other forms of personal independence
• Changes in their ability to care for themselves (bathing, household chores)
• Coping with the death of close friends/family members to COVID-19 and other illness

Grieving over any type of loss and the range of emotions that comes with it is to be expected and it varies by person. However, when grief, sadness, despondency, or other difficult emotions are prolonged and interfere with a senior’s day-to-day vitality, they may be suffering from depression.

The winter solstice (Dec. 21st) plays a role in vitamin D deprivation. Often seniors will suffer from bone softening, nausea, cognitive difficulties and frailty. Each of these symptoms can be mistaken for any number of illnesses but could quickly be identified as a lack of Vitamin D by a physician.

The CDC has determined that osteoporosis affects 16% of all seniors. The condition carries serious health risks, potentially leading to falls and other home safety hazards. The clear connection between vitamin D and bone health in the elderly helps defend against bone softening. Vitamin D improves senior mental health, combating prevalent issues like elderly depression. A 2017 study of more than 5,600 older adults found a link between lower levels of vitamin D and depressive symptoms, such as loneliness, lack of enjoyment, and restless sleep.

Study participants with the least amount of vitamin D reported more pronounced mental health concerns. As a result of this emerging science, researchers continue to investigate a potential vitamin D antidepressant.

Addressing Vitamin D Deficiency in Later Life?

Could sun dried mushrooms and tank-top shirts be keys to reducing vitamin D deficiencies in later life thus reducing fall risks? Well, yes and let’s discuss why. Vitamin D is often called the sunshine vitamin as it is made from cholesterol in skin and as the sun’s ultraviolet B (UVB) penetrate skin cells it causes production of vitamin D3. ¹The dilemma for seniors is that older skin cannot synthesize vitamin D as efficiently while outside activities are often greatly reduced: and, while there are few foods that actually contain vitamin D, older seniors need more vitamin D, approximately 800 IU (international units) daily, as opposed to 600 IU daily for their younger counterparts. ²(According to the Institutes of Medicine, a serum 25 (OH) D level of 25 ng/ml is adequate for most populations while deficiency is defined as less than 20 ng/ml, with insufficiency being less than 30 ng/ml. Through a process called hydroxylation, the liver and kidneys turn stored vitamin D into an active form the body uses.) 

Vitamin D Deficiency is Linked to Poorer Health 

Because older adults are vulnerable to muscle weakness and falls, maintaining sufficient levels of vitamin D is important: there is evidence that sufficient vitamin D levels can strengthen bone and muscles in older adults which leads to reductions in falls³ – the primary benefit of vitamin D is to maintain serum calcium and phosphorus levels within normal ranges to support metabolic function, neuromuscular transmission, and bone mineralization.⁴ In fact, vitamin D deficiencies are linked to a multitude of health risks. For seniors in later life, vitamin D deficiency has been linked in studies to such conditions as cognitive decline, depression, osteoporosis, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, although there is debate about the strength of the link. ⁵Vitamin deficient older adults living in areas prone to inadequate exposure to sunlight have increased risk of experiencing cognitive decline. ⁶Vitamin D deficient older adults may experience a loss of bone density which causes fractures and falls.⁷ Vitamin D deficient older adults may experience increases of risk factors for cardiovascular disease. ⁸Vitamin D deficient older adults may experience increases of risk factors for depression and other psychiatric conditions.⁹