Senior Care TV

What Is Aging


If You'd Rather Read

Hi everybody. It's Bre from affordable home care. I hope you're all having a great week so far.

Today I wanted to discuss a topic that is obviously very much related to the industry that I so proudly work in. I wanna talk about aging, So you know, I want to talk about, what is aging? Why does it happen? And is there anything you can do to prevent it?

What's normal aging? And what may not be so normal. So first off, what is aging? I mean aging is a normal process we're all, god willing, gonna go through. So it's degenerative changes in your body, your cells don't renew as quickly as they should've.

Environmental factors play a key role in those things. There's things you can do about it, you know diet, exercise, life modifications, things like that. But for the most part, aging is inevitable.

So things that are normal are your bones. They get more brittle, they get more weak, your muscles lose flexibility, they're not as strong. But showing pain and limping, those kinds of things aren't normal. So if you're experiencing some of those things or your loved one, you'd want to get that checked out. Also changes to the heart are considered normal. The arteries and vessels harden, which causes the heart to work harder. If you're experiencing chest pains or numbness to the arms or the legs, that is not considered normal, again you'll want to go to the doctor right away and get that checked out.

Our eyesight, our hearing, those things all get worse as we age. You become more sensitive to light and obviously, you can lose your ability to hear as well. So, you know, hearing aids and glasses, contacts, those types of things are a normal part of aging. But if you are becoming increasingly sensitive to light and it's causing headaches and things like that and you just can not hear at all, feeling like maybe you have a bucket over your head, kind of a sound, you'll want to get those things checked out those aren't necessarily considered normal.

And then the real fun stuff, you know, we're all gonna get wrinkles, we're all gonna get gray and a lot of us start to shrink. All those things are a normal part of the aging process and with that is also, you know our memory can definitely take a hit. So normal memory loss could be something like just, you know forgetting your keys and running back in to get them or something like that. But forgetting things like close family members names or events that just recently happened, not remembering them, those may indicate something more serious is going on. May wanna begin getting an evaluation for Alzheimer's or dementia because those types of memory loss are not necessarily considered normal mental changes.

Just a fun fact for you, did you know that the oldest person lived to be 122 and she lived in France. So I'm very curious to see what her secrets to longevity were. So I may do some more research on that and share that with you guys at a later time. But yes aging, it's you know, it's a part of life and the more we understand about it, the better caregivers and care providers and family members we can be to those around us that are experiencing aging. If you want any more insight or information on any of this, please check out our website at affordablehomecare.org also while you're there, please enter our monthly sweepstakes. We have a raffle every month. And download our free home care guide. But I look forward to talking to you guys all again soon, have a great day.