Senior's Health

Bone min­er­al den­si­ty (BMD) scans, also known as dual-ener­gy X‑ray absorp­tiom­e­try (DEXA or DXA) scans, use a very small amount of radi­a­tion to deter­mine the min­er­al con­tent in your bones and tests for osteo­poro­sis and/​or osteopenia.

Car­ing for an aging loved one can be reward­ing — but also chal­leng­ing. Here are 9 tips to help care­givers pri­or­i­tize their own phys­i­cal and men­tal health.

May is Nation­al Osteo­poro­sis Month, a great time to set the record straight about this debil­i­tat­ing and poten­tial­ly dead­ly dis­ease. While it’s the most com­mon type of bone dis­ease, mis­un­der­stand­ing exists about who can suf­fer from it and what can be done to pre­vent it.

While pro­longed hos­pi­tal stays are intend­ed to restore your body, long peri­ods of bedrest may result in var­i­ous phys­i­cal side effects. Break­Through Care Cen­ter physi­cian, Dr. Karl Szafran­s­ki, shares insights to help pre­pare you for phys­i­cal changes that you may expe­ri­ence with a long hos­pi­tal stay.

After age 50, frac­tured bones present a major health threat for approx­i­mate­ly 50% of men and women (that’s right, men can be impact­ed as well). The cul­prit is a dis­ease called osteo­poro­sis and is char­ac­ter­ized by poor bone quality.

Care­givers sac­ri­fice a lot for those they care for, but, often­times, neglect their own health in the process. Between help­ing with every­day liv­ing, man­ag­ing med­ical care and tak­ing care of house­hold activ­i­ties, it is no sur­prise that many care­givers feel men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly exhaust­ed over time. To help pre­vent symp­toms of ​“burnout”, we have com­piled tips to rec­og­nize care­giv­er fatigue in your­self and oth­ers, as well as how to prac­tice self-care in such a demand­ing role.

Demen­tia refers to a group of dis­eases and symp­toms that are asso­ci­at­ed with a decline in mem­o­ry and cog­ni­tive func­tion severe enough to inter­fere with every­day life. It is most com­mon in those over the age of 65 and may cause symp­toms that hin­der the abil­i­ty to think, remem­ber and rea­son. Today, approx­i­mate­ly 47.5 mil­lion peo­ple are liv­ing with demen­tia worldwide.

It is nor­mal for you to expe­ri­ence changes in your vision through­out your life, and as you age, your risk of devel­op­ing cer­tain eye con­di­tions increas­es as well. For most peo­ple, changes in their eyes begin in their ear­ly to mid-40s and will con­tin­ue into their ear­ly 60s. The most com­mon visu­al change in old­er adults is dif­fi­cul­ty see­ing things close by, pri­mar­i­ly when read­ing or work­ing on a com­put­er. This is a con­di­tion called pres­by­opia, a nor­mal change in your eye­’s abil­i­ty to focus. This hap­pens when the lens of your eye los­es some of its flex­i­bil­i­ty, mak­ing it more dif­fi­cult for your eyes to shift eas­i­ly from objects far away to objects near­by. Typ­i­cal symp­toms include dif­fi­cul­ty read­ing print mate­ri­als includ­ing books, news­pa­pers or menus, espe­cial­ly in dim light. You may find your­self hold­ing objects away from you in order to see more clear­ly. Once it devel­ops, pres­by­opia will con­tin­ue to progress as you age. Indi­vid­u­als who already wear glass­es or con­tact lens­es may need to switch to bifo­cal or mul­ti­fo­cal lens­es for help with near and far dis­tances. Those who haven’t need­ed con­tacts or glass­es in the past may need to use read­ing glass­es mov­ing forward.

Grow­ing old may be inevitable, how­ev­er, aging well is a choice. Thanks to med­ical advance­ments and increased access to care, the aver­age Amer­i­can is liv­ing to near­ly 80 years old. Tak­ing a proac­tive approach, and estab­lish­ing healthy habits now can help you to feel your best as you enter into your gold­en years. Our Inter­nal Med­i­cine physi­cians, as well as some of their active senior patients, share what you can do now to remain healthy, regard­less of your age.

Essen­tial­ly, there are two fac­tors that can cause issues to the spine as we age. The first is change in the struc­tur­al integri­ty of the bone itself, oth­er­wise known as bone min­er­al den­si­ty. The sec­ond is wear and tear, or degen­er­a­tion, of the var­i­ous motion pro­duc­ing struc­tures of the spine. While there are a vari­ety of spine issues one may expe­ri­ence, these two types of con­di­tions tend to make up the major­i­ty of med­ical issues that bring patients to their doctor.