Page 2 - Health

Your oxygen concentrator is an important investment in your health. This medical device can have a significant impact on your overall health, so it’s important that you maintain the concentrator in order to keep it performing at its best. With proper maintenance and care, a quality oxygen concentrator will last you around 100,000 hours. These steps can help you to maintain your concentrator so that it performs well when you need to rely on it.

It’s a decision that rarely has an easy answer. Should you age in place in your home or move to an assisted living facility? Most seniors face that question at some point in their lives. As you age, it’s likely that you may have increasing difficulty performing basic living functions. While you may want to stay in your home, it’s tempting to think that life may be easier with the support that comes from assisted living.

Limited mobility, whether temporary or permanent, can bring a host of different challenges. There are the practical and logistical difficulties of managing daily living activities, like getting dressed, using the restroom, and even feeding one’s self.

There are also the mental challenges that can arise. It’s difficult to lose some or all of your independence. You may have to rely on others for basic tasks. You may grow bored or even depressed by your inability to leave the house or even your bed. If you’re caring for a loved one with limited mobility, you might notice them becoming more withdrawn.

June is National Alzheimer’s Disease Awareness Month, with a calendar of activities designed to raise awareness about the risk of a condition that affects more than 47 million people worldwide. If you have friends or loved ones who suffer from Alzheimer’s, you likely know the danger. It can cripple a person’s ability to function and enjoy life, and it can place a tremendous amount of stress - financial and emotional - on the individual’s supporters and loved ones.

Do you have hip replacement surgery scheduled in the near future? If so, there’s no time like the present to start planning your recovery. In the long term, your new hip will likely give you added mobility and may help you become much more active.

Many elderly people prefer to live independently, rather than receiving care assistance. Unfortunately, there are a number of unexpected dangers in independent living for the elderly. Some of these dangers can be solved with the addition of home medical equipment while others may indicate that it might be time to bring in home care assistance or to move your loved one to a care facility.

Bed sores can become a problem anytime that a person is confined to a bed (or sometimes a wheelchair) for an extended period of time. Also known as pressure sores or pressure ulcers, bed sores are painful and difficult to treat. These tips on reducing and preventing bed sores can make a big difference in your patient’s life and comfort.

Have you ever considered using a CPAP machine? CPAP (short for continuous positive airway pressure) machines are useful for treating sleep apnea. CPAP machines have been regarded as being useful for people who are overweight, but the truth is that CPAP machines can help improve the health of people who are of healthy weights, too. Here’s what you should know about CPAP machines.

Physical activity is beneficial at any phase during your life, but staying physically active brings with it some added challenges when you’re age sixty or over. If you’d like to increase your activity level, here are some do’s and don’ts that you should be aware of if you’re over sixty.

Are you considering buying adult diapers, either for you or a loved one? If you’ve never before used adult diapers, then you may have some questions. Here are the facts that you need to know about buying and using adult diapers.