Senior Safety

Polypharmacy for Seniors: Is Your Loved One Over-Prescribed? With more than a third of all 60-year-olds taking five or more prescription medications, it’s no surprise that problems are resulting from polypharmacy for seniors. Polypharmacy, defined as “…when an adverse drug effect is misinterpreted as a new medical problem – leading to the prescribing of more medication to treat the initial drug-induced symptom,” can result in a variety of additional health risks or worsening of existing conditions. So how can you determine if medications for seniors are truly helping, or possibly doing more harm than good? Before overmedication becomes a concern, it’s recommended that seniors and their caregivers take a careful inventory of prescriptions being taken, and have a plan in place for de-prescribing when needed. The following steps can help: Put together a list of all medications, including prescriptions, OTC drugs, and vitamin or herbal supplements, and share with the primary care physician and pharmacist. Request a review of both the medications…

What to Do with Expired and Unwanted Senior Medications With many older adults taking numerous prescriptions, and with doctors adding and changing dosages and medications to determine the ideal solutions, it’s crucial to understand what to do with expired and unwanted senior medications. There are several options: Check labels. The prescription's label or informational literature may provide directions about how to properly dispose of the drug.  Bring unused and expired prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications and natural health products to your local pharmacist for proper disposal. All pharmacies in Canada are required to accept unused or expired medications any day of the year.  Participate in a local municipality or police force take back program. Check your local area for program dates. Avoid flushing any medication down the toilet. This is an improper disposal of drugs that may contribute to pharmaceuticals being detected in the environment.   Camouflage when disposing. If you must dispose of medications in the regular…

Home Care During the Pandemic: Keeping Seniors Safe For the past several months, family caregivers have had to manage seemingly monumental challenges in connection with the care of the seniors they love. With COVID-19’s specific dangers to the elderly and those with underlying health conditions, such as COPD, diabetes, heart problems, and others which are common in the elderly, families have struggled with keeping seniors safe and knowing how to best protect their older loved ones. To that end, some families made the very difficult choice to pause home care services to avoid having anyone outside of the family come into the home – meaning they were suddenly responsible for full-time elder care. Without a care partner, this alone is often unbelievably stressful, but add to that the many other new responsibilities and concerns as a result of the pandemic, such as shifting to working virtually, caring for young children who could no longer attend school or daycare, and more.  To say it is been an overwhelming time is an understatement,…

Summer Heat Safety for Seniors The warmer weather may finally be here, but too much heat is not safe for anyone. It is even riskier if you are older or have health problems. It is important to get relief from the heat quickly. If not, you might begin to feel confused or faint.  Older people can have a tough time dealing with heat and humidity. The temperature inside or outside does not have to reach 100°F (38°C) to put them at risk for a heat-related illness. Headache, confusion, dizziness, or nausea could be a sign of a heat-related illness. Being hot for too long can be a problem (especially without air conditioning) and can cause several illnesses: Heat syncope is a sudden dizziness that can happen when you are active in hot weather. If you take a heart medication (beta blocker) or are not used to hot weather, you are even more likely to feel faint. Rest in a cool place, put legs up, and drink water to make the dizzy feeling go away. Heat cramps are the painful tightening of muscles in your stomach, arms, or…

Windsor-Essex Home Care Provider Recommends the Best Technology Solutions for Aging in Place It doesn't matter if you are trying to tune a guitar, learn a new language, or just add cats’ ears to a selfie, there is an app for that! And for seniors who prefer to age in place, technology may be an essential element in improving safety, comfort, and overall wellbeing.  Take Amazon’s Alexa, as an example. Whereas its current benefits for seniors are many, like the ability to track sugar levels, make medical appointments, and research information related to a certain health issue, it is actually poised to dig even deeper within the medical care arena – maybe even detecting heart attacks and helping doctors obtain precise diagnoses. Here are several additional technology solutions you might want to consider for an older adult you love: Home Security: A motion-detecting security system provides peace of mind related to crime prevention; however, often it can perform a lot more tasks, such as alerting when sensing smoke, broken glass, or when temperatures in the house are abnormally…

Activities for Seniors To Find Meaning and Purpose in Everyday Life Think of a regular day in the life of a senior loved one. Hopefully it provides a couple of uplifting and enriching experiences: enjoying breakfast, engaging in a pleasant activity or interest, visiting with a friend or relative, watching a popular TV show. Nevertheless there is a difference between positivity and purpose.  The need for a life rich with meaning and purpose is becoming more apparent, especially in the life of senior loved ones. Viktor Frankl, world-renowned psychiatrist and survivor of the Holocaust, explains poignantly, “What matters is not the meaning in life in general, but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.” For individuals whose identity has been focused entirely on a profession and raising a family, and who now have reached a season of retirement and fulfilled family responsibilities, it could be hard to find other meaning and purpose. At Amy’s Helping Hands, we make it a top priority to help identify activities for seniors…