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Tag: elder care in scottsdale az

National Mocktail Week Helps Your Parents Embrace Healthier Habits

Posted on by Craig Bass

One of the biggest challenges for older adults can be giving up that pint of beer, a glass of wine, or a favorite cocktail. Yet, several of the more common prescription medications the elderly take have alcoholic beverages listed in the contraindications.

The second week of January is National Mocktail Week. It’s a good time to join your parents and embrace healthier habits. Here are some of the best ways to use mocktails to get your parents to give up their favorite dinner-time beverages, and how elder care can help.

What Are Your Parents Favorite Beverages?

What are your parents’ favorite cocktails? Your dad loves a gin and tonic. There are non-alcoholic gins on the market, or you could make it with fresh lime juice, tonic water, and ice. Your mom’s craving for a Moscow Mule is easily met with fresh lime juice, a stevia-sweetened ginger ale, soda water, and sprigs of mint.

If they love having a pint of beer with their dinner, look into hop oil. You can add some drops of hop oil to a glass of ice and seltzer. Look into sparkling grape juice for a glass of wine and mix it with some seltzer if it’s too sweet for them. There are also non-alcoholic wines that can be pretty convincing.

Make daiquiris using pureed frozen fruits, seltzer, and lime juice. If they miss the flavor of rum, use rum extract.

Skip the Sugar

When making mocktails for your mom and dad, pay attention to their dietary needs. If they are supposed to reduce their sugar intake due to diabetes, don’t use sugar syrup. Instead, use a sweetener like stevia drops and limit the amount used.

Use fresh fruits for sweetening drinks over sugar. The antioxidants are important. Pureed cherries add sweetness to a drink and count as one of their daily servings of fresh fruit.

Hire Elder Care to Keep Your Parents on Track

How well do your mom and dad do with their prescribed medicines? Do they take them on time or often forget a dose? If they do forget the dose, you can’t have them taking twice as much. If they skip some medications, it could impact their health. This is why elder care is one of the best things you can arrange.

Elder care aides stop by and remind your parents when to take their next dose. They have someone to track whether they’ve taken a pill or not. They won’t miss a dose or take too much because they don’t remember that they’ve already taken it. Call an elder care specialist to get started.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-aha-news-year-mocktail.html

National Mocktail Week Marks the Rise of Alcohol-Free Drinks

If you or an aging loved one is considering elder care in Scottsdale, AZ, please call the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Scottsdale at (480) 284-7360. We are here to help!

Is There a Connection Between Hearing Loss and Fall Risk?

Posted on by Craig Bass

Falls and the risk of falling are a huge problem for older adults. You might not realize it, but her ability to hear can have more impact on her ability to avoid a fall. These two issues are each something that you can take action to help, but you need to be aware of what’s going on first.

Her Ears Help with Balance

You may already know that the inner ear helps with balance. The inner ear collects information about where your senior is located in relation to the ground. It acts a little bit like a gyroscope in that the data the inner ear collects helps your senior’s brain to understand how it’s positioned. If her inner ear isn’t functioning correctly, that influences her hearing of course, but it also creates balance problems for your elderly family member.

Her Brain Is Processing a Lot in Regard to Hearing

Elder Care in Scottsdale AZYour senior’s ears are a big part of her ability to hear, but there’s more going on in her brain. When hearing is damaged, the brain tries to compensate. Some studies have found that often the ears are fine, but it’s the brain that’s having trouble processing sounds and making sense of them. But there’s still more. Even when it’s the ears that are the problem, the cognitive load that the brain takes on in order to keep trying to process sounds can create situations in which your elderly family member doesn’t have enough brain function free to focus on things like maintaining her balance.

Certain Sounds Can Indicate Trouble

Sounds keep people apprised of what’s going on around them, including things that might be dangerous. When your elderly family member can’t hear what’s going on around her, she might be easily startled. Jumping or just being startled can cause her to lose her balance, which easily leads to a fall. Problems with her hearing can mean that your senior isn’t aware of her surroundings much at all, which can be dangerous if she goes out alone regularly.

Hearing issues can create a lot of other situations for your elderly family member. Keeping tabs on your senior’s hearing is important and her doctor can help with that. It may also be a good idea to ensure that your senior has a companion with her who is able to help her with avoiding obstacles and other issues. If you’re not able to do that for her, elder care providers have the experience your senior needs on her side.

If you or an aging loved one is considering hiring elder care in Scottsdale, AZ, please call the caring staff at Golden Heart Senior Care of Scottsdale at (480) 284-7360. We are here to help!