Rehab Select Blog

A stroke is a devastating life event, leaving victims mentally and physically weak as it takes away their ability to perform daily living activities. Fortunately, new technologies are helping us make stroke rehabilitation more effective.

A stroke is a serious medical conditionwith prolonged, debilitating impacts on a patient’s life. During a stroke, blood clots or constricted vessels in the brain prevent nerve cells from getting the nutrients they need. As a result, these cells may die off, causing temporary or permanent symptoms like weakness, paralysis, impaired speech, loss of vision, memory problems, personality changes, difficulty swallowing, etc.

Cardiac therapy is often recommended for people who have heart disease, and/or had some sort of cardiac event like a heart attack. Cardiomyopathy, congenital heart disease, peripheral arterial disease, and heart failure patients can also often benefit from this therapy, to increase survival and improve quality of life.

According to the American Heart Association, cardiac rehab programs containthree essential parts: 

• Exercise counseling and training 
• Education for heart-healthy living 
• Counseling to reduce stress 

A fall can be an unpleasant situation for anyone. For a senior citizen or someone with a physical injury or disability, however, this type of situation can be a disastrous one that leads to significant damage. The bathroom is a particularly dangerous area in which falls can happen, for two main reasons: surfaces in bathrooms, including floors, are usually hard and slick; and people generally use water in bathrooms, which can make these slick surfaces even more slippery. Luckily, there are a few fall prevention tips that can be followed to minimize the risk of falling while in the bathroom.

Falling is the number one cause of injuries – and injury death – among older Americans. It is somewhat shocking to discover that roughly one third of seniors in the United States experience a fall of some type every year that results in a trip to a hospital emergency room. In fact, fall related injuries have become so common for seniors that many physicians think of it as an epidemic, annually damaging the health of millions of otherwise healthy Americans.

Your home is your safe haven, and you have lived there for years. It stands to reason that it would also be the safest place to be as you grow older. You know every inch of your familiar home, so there are no surprises, no unforeseen risks that could cause falls, right?

Not necessarily. In fact, because you are so familiar with your home and therefore think you don't have to take precautions, falling can actually become even more of a risk. It doesn't have to be, though.

The combination of water and hard surfaces makes the bathroom the most likely room in the house for slip and fall accidents. That combination can create serious fall hazards for seniors in particular, since bones lose strength and density with age, increasing the risk of serious injuries when accidents do occur. Plus, eyesight, balance and coordination issues that affect many of us with aging make such incidents more likely.

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a disease that develops very gradually over a number of years, so slowly that its symptoms often go unrecognized until significant lung damage has already been done. This is unfortunate, since treatment can slow the progression of COPD, delaying its most debilitating effects, and the earlier that treatment begins, the better the results in terms of maintaining adequate lung function and a patient's quality of life. So what are the signs of COPD?

Are the symptoms of COPD making simple daily activities a struggle for you? While there is no cure for the disease, and the best help for COPD will come from treatment and medications prescribed by your health care team – and, of course, avoiding tobacco smoke – there are a number of other things you can do to help manage your symptoms more effectively. 

COPD is the third-leading cause of death among Americans, making it hard to control. Unfortunately, it is also a disease that is widespread: nearly 13 million adults in the United States have COPD, and almost 24 million have some evidence of lung problems that could be related to COPD.

While COPD has no cure, there are things that can be done to help make living with the condition easier. Because many people don’t get their COPD diagnosis until later in life, senior citizens are a population that often experience issues relating to its symptoms.