It is my goal that Secrets to Health and Aging will be a source of support, guidance, and inspiration to men and women as they move through middle age and beyond.

Not that long ago, senior years were commonly regarded as a time of increasing decline for mind and body. Today, however, we expect to live longer and have positioned ourselves to benefit from recent medical discoveries regarding prolonging good health and making better lifestyle choices.

Many of us want to be productive during these years, whether our outlets are volunteering, continuing to work in a job or in our own business or profession. It may mean even starting a new business.

My objective is to help men and women prevent illness and retain the productive lifestyle they seek. It is my hope that this blog, with its practical and positive outlook, as well as the additional information I provide on specific topics, will inspire you to make the right choices while you enjoy your health.

Tagged with: health and aging • lifestyle choices • prevent illness • starting a new business • volunteering

Filed under: Retirement

How much sleep you got the night before is often a topic of conversation if you and your friends are over 50 and, of course, if you are much younger and there is an infant living with you. You are not alone. The National Sleep Foundation reports that one half of older adults have at least one symptom of insomnia. Whether you are up because you have to go to the bathroom, which happens more frequently as you age, or something is bothering you about your adult children or at the office, interrupted sleep decreases your sleep quality and increases daytime sleepiness.

Interestingly, sleep has only come into its own as an active process necessary for good health since well into the twentieth century. That is when the key discoveries about the neurological and physiological activity associated with sleep debunked this long held perspective that sleep is passive.  Once science and medicine realized that sleep was not passive it opened a new era in sleep research.

Sleep is now characterized as a dynamic state controlled by specific and complex mechanisms. Even with all these advancements there is still no clear consensus about why sleep is necessary. One theory is that sleep allows the body time to repair itself on the cellular level. Other theories focus on what happens when people are sleep deprived. The fact is sleep loss affects how we think, our mood, hormone balance, and our immune system.

Here are a couple of changes you can make to improve your sleep.

• First use your bed and bedroom only for sleep and sex.

• Take relaxation training classes to help reduce tension and give you techniques for relaxing your muscles.

• Avoid caffeine at least 3 or 4 hours before bed.

• Avoid alcohol late in the evening because it increases waking later in the night.

Share your suggestions for good sleep.  We’ll make a list and pass them on.

To your healthy aging.

Ruthan

Tagged with: relaxation techniques • sleep problems

Filed under: Mind and Body

It would be nice to think that every doctor, nurse, pharmacist, hospital and other provider gives high quality health care. Living in a real world, however, we know that’s not what happens. Quality often depends on where you live, who your doctor is, or what kind of health insurance you have.

To get the kind of quality care I’m talking about requires a team effort in which everyone  is  involved including the government, doctors, hospitals, insurance providers and you the patient. I personally don’t think any of us can count on this kind of team effort taking place in the near future.  It certainly is a realistic goal and could be obtained, but the political climate and the health industry isn’t geared for this.  All of which explains my reasoning for emphasizing your participation in your own health care, especially if you want some semblance of quality.

One of the approaches you can use to measure your health care are clinical measures. These are the general standards for a broad population that may or may not apply to you. For instance, if you have diabetes you should receive the following tests and exams:
Regular blood glucose testing
Regular cholesterol testing
Annual retinal eye exam.
Annual foot exam.
Annual flu shot.

There are also clinical standards for heart disease and cancer.

Today you can find a great deal of information about health care quality on line and in print.  For example, the US Department of Health and Human Services has a quality tool that helps you compare the quality of hospitals in your area.  The tool is available at www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov

Accreditation is another good measure of quality.  That is like giving the seal of approval by a private, independent group.  Organizations that award accreditation are in addition to  the national standards.  This will give you a good place to start. Then the rest of the hunt for quality care is up to you: your preferences and your relationship with your medical team.

Take an active part in your search for the quality care of your health program.  It will be worth the time and effort.

To your successful aging,

Ruthan

Tagged with: quality health care • Ruthan Brodsky

Filed under: Treatment

At least half the time you visit you doctor, you aren’t able to describe your medical diagnoses or the risk factors for disease after visiting the doctor. That is what the research says. In one study doctors were asked to list the health problems that they talked about with their patients on a recent visit. Patients were asked what they thought were their most important health problems.

Patients did not report 54 percent of the health problems doctors considered very important including 62 percent of cardiovascular risk.

Getting the most out of your visit to the doctor is important to your health. That means you need to communicate well with your doctors and understand what they’re saying. I do admit to sometimes feeling like an absolute idiot because if I don’t understand something medical about my condition I will ask over and over until I do understand. I am fortunate. My primary care  physician will make sure I understand everything he’s reporting and if he doesn’t have time at the office to explain it to me he will call me up at home in the evening. That is good communication.

Each of you deserve the same good communication. The first step to interacting with your physician begins when you voice a concern about your health. The doctor takes a personal history, gives you an exam, takes necessary tests and reports her findings and recommendations for treatment. This is the point where patient and doctor often disconnect. For instance, the patient may not agree with the doctor that the diagnosis is important especially if the condition isn’t causing any symptoms.

Patients also listen selectively. If they come to the office worried about one problem and the doctor finds another the patient may only focus on the original problem. Or if the doctor’s findings are serious, denial may kick in at first and the patient may not remember any details of the diagnosis.

By the same token, doctors may not communicating as well as they think they are or they use so much medical babble in their message that you need to be a doctor to understand what they’re saying.

Here are some steps you can take to change the odds and better understand what your physician is telling you about your health.

• Write down your concerns, known medical problems and all medications before the visit.

• Take someone with you to act as a second set of ears.

• Summarize at the end of the visit what you think is important and what you think the doctor said to you.

• Tell the doctor if you don’t understand a term, explanation or therapy.

• Ask your doctor to write down, for you, your medical problems, risk factors for disease, and proposed treatments.

Your doctor may have other people in the office help you get the answers, but that’s okay. You will still have a far better understanding about your diagnosis.

To your successful aging.

Ruthan brodsky

Tagged with: communicating with your doctor • diagnosis

Filed under: Treatment

I started to evaluate just how good our physician is when we started discussing changing health insurance coverage to reduce costs. I knew I would need to select another physician for a new plan and was evaluating the pros and cons which included who would be my physician. Read the rest of this entry

Tagged with: evaluating doctors

Filed under: Treatment

In my last post I wrote about a few cosmetic procedures that are taken care of in the hospital. In this post I’m writing about procedures that take place in your doctor’s office.

What is interesting is that the facelift is not as popular as it once was. Many people are focusing on what is called lunchtime lifts which focus on the mid-face and cheek or mini lifts which deal with the jaw line and neck. People don’t want to go through the pain and a long recovery of a facelift.

Both the lunchtime lifts and mini-lifts are performed in-office under local anesthetic or mild sedation, and take about an hour. Recovery is about one week and costs are $4,500 – $5000 for each.

Others are opting for fillers such as Restylane and Juvederm which help eliminate deep and fine lines. Then there are the Botox injections, a muscle relaxant that works on your crow’s feet and other creases such as the one between your eyes. Lots of people like these because they are not surgery and they are affordable. Fillers can run from $450 to $700 an injection and you usually need to repeat them over a period of time.

From my conversations with plastic surgeons, people need to be more realistic about recovery time and the fact that there might be pain. What ever you do it won’t be an overnight miracle. You may not need recovery time, for example, but you may feel uncomfortable for several weeks and there may be bruises.

My advice if you are thinking about any of these procedures is to make an appointment and then consult with the physician.  Take someone along with you to ask the questions you forget.  Make sure you and the doctor have the same idea and philosophy you do.  And ask to talk with some of the doctor’s patients who had the procedure.  After all, it’s your face!  Make the most of it.

To your healthy aging success.

Ruthan brodsky

Tagged with: fine lines • healthy aging • lunchtime lifts • mini lifts • Ruthan Brodsky • wrinkles

Filed under: Aging Gracefully

One of the gals I play bridge with decided to have a few facial proceduresbecause her grandchildren kept asking her if she were angry.

“I would tell them I’m not angry, this is just the way I look. The last time they asked this I thought I had better take care of this.”

Carolyn is 63 and works part time as a conference organizer for large organizations. This fall she had three facial procedures: blepharoplasty (an eyelid lift), full-face laser resurfacing, and fat injections.

“Now my grandchildren say I look happy all the time.”

Carolyn is among the growing trend across the county of patients 55 and older who now make up one-quarter of the more than 12 million cosmetic procedures performed in the U.S. (American Society of Plastic Surgeons, ASPS). Despite the poor economy that number is up slightly from last year and patients ages 40 to 54 accounted for 47 percent of all procedures done.

Obviously today’s seniors are more health conscious and like many of us, they look in the mirror and even though they feel younger, they still look older. When senior men and women feel good physically it makes sense that they focus cosmetic procedures on their face. Look at these figures for 2008: those 55 and older had 48% of all blepharoplasties, 43% of all laser skin resurfacing, and 66% of all facelifts performed in the U.S. last year.

The eyelift removes excess skin and fatty tissue and reduces bags and wrinkles. The CO2 laser skin resurfacing, using a computer generated laser to vaporize skin layers and cause thermal damage is the next most popular procedure. The laser process results in tighter skin and has a positive effect on lines and wrinkles and pigmentation.  Both treatments are performed in a hospital under general anesthetic and recovery takes a couple of weeks. The eye lift costs around $6000 and the laser procedure close to $7000 including hospital costs.

I haven’t seen the results yet because she is now babysitting her grandchildren in another state. But I did talk to her and she sounds so very happy.

Do you have any plans for any facial procedures? Will you share your reason why you made that choice? I think we all need to be better informed and not make such hasty judgments.

To your success at healthy aging,

Ruthan Brodsky

Tagged with: cosmetic surgery • facelifts • facial procedures • mini lifts • Ruthan Brodsky

Filed under: Aging Gracefully

Sometimes, no matter what you do, a season doesn’t pass without you getting a least one blister. It may be the new pair of shoes you bought for an Alaskan cruise. Or maybe the cause was the cushioned socks that bunched up in your
running or tennis shoes. Whatever the reason, and so often it happens because we get lazy or to busy to take a minute and check the problem,  so that now we have a full blown blister.

If you have a red, sore area where you think a blister might be developing, cover it with a bandage immediately and keep the bandage on as you wear shoes over the next several days. If you develop an actual blister, treat it as soon as you can before a fluid builds up inside. The good news is that you can treat the blister yourself with a few simple steps. (If, however, you are diabetic or have circulation problems, it is always a good idea to see your physician first. )

Take these steps to treat your blister.
1.    Wash your hands well.
2.    Clean the blister are with iodine or alcohol.
3.    Puncture the blister with a needle that you have sterilized by soaking it in alcohol.
4.    Leave the top on the blister. Do not pull off that layer because that will open the raw area to infection.
5.    Apply a topical antiseptic to the blister and the surrounding skin.
6.    Cover the blister with a bandage or piece of sterile gauze taped into place and keep it covered for several days.
7.    If your blister does not heal or is painful make an appointment with a doctor.

To prevent blisters keep your feet dry and powdered and consider inserting a pad in your shoe where the rub took place or giving your shoes away.

If you have any tricks for preventing blisters when you travel, please share them with us. On trips outside the US I always take a package of moleskin. It came in very handy on one trip when my husband’s new walking shoes rubbed the back of his feet raw!

To your success at healthy aging,

Ruthan Brodsky

Tagged with: Blister • blister treatment • foot pain • prevent blisters • Ruthan Brodsky

Filed under: Conditions and Diseases • Treatment

Yesterday I woke up in a funk. Usually I can change my outlook just by staying in bed for 10 minutes and reorganizing my thinking. That did not work yesterday.  It took longer to change from negative to positive but I did it.

It has always been important to me to be positive. In my early teens I read Norman Vincent Peale’s book, The Power of Positive Thinking.  At the time I couldn’t figure out why it took an entire book to say that to think positively you needed to work at doing just that – it doesn’t often just take place. Well the book must have made an impression because I’ve been working at thinking positively my entire life.

One of the things I do, and I’m hoping this will help you when you have your blue days, is to organize my day – on paper. This helps me to establish priorities and when you write down what you absolutely must do, the list isn’t as big as you think. This is particularly helpful for me when I feel overwhelmed about what I should be doing. The problem is I sometimes confuse what I should or could be doing or want to be doing with what I need to be doing.  Once I detail what I need, which usually resembles my personal and business goals, that murky unsettled feeling drifts away. And when that happens I usually, almost always, acknowledge my gratitude for what I already have and what I’ve achieved.

It’s the organization of the day that starts the move toward being positive.

I know the challenges will become even more frequent as my husband and friends and I add up the years.

Do let me know if you find this helpful. And I would love to know what you do to get up from being down in the dumps.

To your healthy aging,

Ruthan Brodsky

Tagged with: positive thinking

Filed under: Aging Gracefully

I am always thinking about ways in which I can lead a healthier lifestyle in the most natural way possible. Although having a positive attitude about life in general was always important to me, and I worked at it, as I get older it is even more important.  So many bad things can happen to good people who get older!
I am delighted to report that I may be able to achieve my goals far more efficiently this year. It could be as simple as knowing what foods to eat and when to eat them. Read the rest of this entry

Tagged with: alert • depression • Mediterranean • Ruthan Brodsky

Filed under: Fitness and Nutrition • Mind and Body

My dad use to say that you have to be a warrior to make it to old age. Just writing about all the changes that take place with your feet and how you must accommodate and protect your feet make his words ring loud and clear.

One of the most common, and painful, causes of painful arches is plantar fasciitis, inflammation of the plantar fascia. The plantar fascia is a band of fibrous connective tissue that runs along the bottom of the foot and helps secure the arch.  Athletes who run and jump and do marathons often develop this condition.

As you get older you can also get it from being too overweight, by wearing shoes that are too narrow, or even by standing on a ladder or step stool for a long time. The inflammation may be aggravated by shoes that lack the right support, especially for the arches. The point is when you keep stretching that fibrous tissue it starts tearing at different points all the way to the heel bone.

If you don’t pay attention to what’s happening, it gets worse. Then you develop bone spurs, which are calcium deposits that are visible on x-rays. They can measure up to half an inch long and they form on the heel when the small muscles associated with fascia begin tugging hard on the heel bone.

The good news is that these spurs don’t have nerve endings, so they’re not painful by themselves. However, if they stress the plantar fascia, they can worsen the pain. What makes this really bad is the plantar fasciitis places more stress on your Achilles tendon. In other words now you are more at risk for developing Achilles tendinitis.

I do want to recommend that you consider reading this book that will help you treat your condition without surgery. I do receive a commission if you should purchase the book, but I bought it and as you know I only recommend items that are worth while. To find out more about this book and receive a special report on how to find the right shoe, click on Plantar Fasciitis Treatment Guide.

To your success at healthy aging.

Ruthan Brodsky

Tagged with: foot problems • Ruthan Brodsky

Filed under: Conditions and Diseases