Monthly Archives: May 2019

Dogs Are An Essential Support To Senior Wellbeing

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Dogs Are An Essential Support To Senior Wellbeing

Animal therapy has become recognized as an alternative method in helping seniors remain healthy, both mentally and physically. In fact, a study published in the journal Pain Medicine found that therapy dogs helped to significantly reduce pain and emotional distress in individuals battling chronic conditions. Moderate exercise and eating right are key to a senior’s ongoing well being, but having a four-pawed companion can have tremendous whole person health benefits as well.

Dog Walking Takes Steps Toward Better Health

On the physical side, having a dog provides a mandatory excuse for a senior to get outside and walk. There’s also the physical movement of feeding and providing water everyday. These activities all contribute to lower blood pressure and fewer occurrences of chronic health conditions like obesity.

In fact, a University of Missouri study showed that walking a dog regularly can lead to a lower body mass index. This can positively contribute to overall health and help prevent conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. Seniors in the study who walked their dog also reported fewer doctor visits.

Emotionally, for a single senior, whether home alone or in an assisted-living facility, a dog provides heart-felt companionship to battle loneliness, and gives the senior a purposeful reason to get up and moving every day. Dog-walking also has social benefits. Seniors who walk dogs have an easy way to connect with other pet lovers who cross their path.

Pets Help Maintain The Brain

Memory loss and cognitive health can be a side effect of aging. However, new research has shown that having a pet in the twilight years can spur extended brain strength. These daily routines of pet ownership help keep a senior’s brain focused and even improve memory as we age, according to Dr. Penny B. Donnenfeld. “I’ve seen those with memory loss interact with an animal and regain access to memories from long ago,” the psychologist explains. “Having a pet helps the senior focus on something other than their physical problems and negative preoccupations about loss or aging.”

Assisted Living Pet Friendly Places

Recognizing the correlation between pet ownership and whole health, senior assisted-living communities are now allowing and encouraging ownership. And while on top of paying rent, pets can be another financial commitment, there are federal programs like Medicaid that minimize health care and prescription costs. Those savings can be used by seniors on a budget to feed and support their furry friends. For those seniors who don’t want to own a pet, many facilities and nursing homes have created programs where rescue organizations bring in dogs during the week for resident interaction during so-called “pet therapy” sessions. Staff often report positive changes in mood and behavior of the folks during and after these visits.

Caring and feeding of a dog can have rich results on a senior’s physical and mental health. Walking a dog literally keeps a senior on his or her toes, and takes a person’s mind off pain or loneliness. Dogs remain man’s best friend and maybe even more so in a person’s twilight years.

For more whole health discussions, listen to my weekly radio show Living Above The Drama. Also available on iHeartRadio.

Taking Control of Your Health

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Taking Control OF Your Whole Person Health

It’s no secret that we Americans have reached an all time level of being “unhealthy”, thanks to an ever increasing stress-filled lifestyle. Despite widespread campaigns aimed at helping people stop smoking, eat better and exercise, the vast majority of Americans do not get regular exercise and are not eating enough fruits and vegetables. This has resulted in an explosion in obesity that has been sited as high as 63%, along with climbing rates of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other diseases associated with lifestyle and behavior choices.

As far back as 1996, Harvard Medical School published a 7- year study which confirms up to 70% of all cancer, heart disease, stroke and mature onset diabetes are preventable with lifestyle and behavior changes. And yet, the health of the wealthiest nation in the world continues to decline. Today the fastest growing population for obesity is found in children ages 4 to 8 years old.

Core factors for this epidemic amongst Americans can be found in one particular government study. In 2005, the Institute of Medicine published a major study identifying that ninety million Americans are “health illiterate.” This does not mean, in this Internet dominant society, that people do not have access to or are not receiving enough health information. It means that the majority of us do not know how to interpret or use the health information we receive to control or improve our health or prevent chronic disease.

Think of the last time you read the results of a new study in a magazine, and realized you did not know how to use that information to support or improve your health. In fact, data, presented to the American College of Health Care Executives identifies, “lack of information as the number one root cause of disease and death.” Yet, experts like Susan Edgman-Levatin, Executive Director, John D. Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation at Massachusetts General Hospital, acknowledges “It’s no secret that traditional methods of patient education are hopelessly ineffective.” To compound this, information on the Internet may or may not be reliable and is not crafted to explain the how and why our bodies become sick. We need to know the specifics of how to prevent illness not just what modalities, supplements or therapies can treat the condition.

The focus for this blog is to offer mini-tutorials in the science of whole person health and wellness education through, sharing with readers information that can provide tools, skills and knowledge to:

(1) understand why and how chronic illness or dis-ease manifests in our bodies

(2) what can you do to control and/or heal your chronic conditions

(3) what do these conditions represent with regard to your whole self – what are the physical, emotional, nutritional, environmental and spiritual aspects of your life communicating

This information, while evidence-based and scientific in nature, will be demystified and include a self-care perspective to allow any and all who read this blog to take away some nugget of insight, knowledge or a new perspective they can apply to their personal health and wellness choices. Be sure to check back weekly.

For more whole health discussions, listen to my weekly radio show Living Above The Drama. Also available on iHeartRadio.

Use Stress Reduction To Avoid Chronic Disease

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Patients my use stress reduction to avoid chronic disease

Understanding the connection between brain function, cranial nerves, digestion and immune functions illuminates how and why dysfunction and “dis-ease” occur in the body. Just as our machines need electricity to operate, so do our internal organs and cells require electrical impulses to function. The degree to which a patient’s nervous system is balanced and well-functioning – or not – is the degree to which they are healthy and able to function at maximum capacity in the world. This is the key to how students of the accredited health program can guide their patients in using stress reduction to avoid, or reduce the symptoms of, chronic disease.

Many healing arts, such as acupuncture, yoga postures, meditation, chiropractic, breathing techniques, biofeedback, hypnosis, EMDR and others attempt to restore balance to the nervous system as the pathway to improving internal and external bodily function. These methods address the cause of the presenting condition, rather than just treating the pain or symptom of the bodily malfunction.

By looking more closely at the digestive system and its intimate relationship with the immune system and the nervous system, we can easily follow the pathway of how brain function and the nervous system can create a “whole body” systemic cascade of bodily reactions, which over time lead to chronic illness and disease. Our nervous systems are impacted by stressors; however, stress is not limited to just the emotional realm as many believe. The broader topic of stressors and adrenal function are explored throughout NIWH’s health coach and holistic nurse certification programs.

stress reduction whole health educationFor now, keep in mind that when our stress or anxiety causes our limbic system to send biochemical messages to our cranial nerves, our digestive systems can be functionally affected. The anxiety and stress increases our adrenal function output, and this increase of adrenal hormones and steroids in turn decreases our digestive and immune system functions.

A written schematic would look like this:

Stressor = A limbic system response and/or increased adrenal cortisol secretion. = Decreased digestive function thru sympathetic cranial nerves (vagus nerve) and decreased immune (bone marrow) function.

The effect of a stressor on the body in the short term can be readily overcome by a healthy, adaptive nervous system. It is the longer stress–the chronic ongoing conditions and issues–that place wear and tear on our nervous systems and organs. It is this friction or wear and tear that leads to chronic illness.

By understanding the intimate dance of our body’s organs and systems and how to maintain a balanced, healthy nervous system we can help patients use stress reduction to avoid illness and chronic disease, and to live long, productive and disease free lives!

For more whole health discussions, listen to my weekly radio show Living Above The Drama. Also available on iHeartRadio.