How To Make Your Home Healthy & Improve Your Living Environment For Older Adults?

Exposing At-Home Dangers to Your Skin and Well-Being

It’s hard to imagine aging when you’re always in your home. No sun, no wrinkles. No free radicals, no need for antioxidants. However, if you’re still feeling grumpy; grumpy like you’re aging and you can’t do anything about it, you can use some at-home tips to do wonders.

DE-STRESS YOUR HOME

Look around you. If there’s so much clutter, dust, dirty laundry, these can really ignite your temper. Clean your home and fill it with soothing scents. Ever wonder why a sunset on a really clean bay with the sun glistening on the clear water looks so relaxing? That’s it, cleanliness = good mood.

Save yourself from some self-nagging. Start picking the broom up and clean your surroundings. Classify the things that you need and not need on your desk. Your working area should also be clean so you can focus on your work faster and focus on your rest longer.

Speaking of rest, try putting lavender or chamomile powder on your sheets just before you sleep. These scents induce sleep-sanctifying hormones to help you get the sleep you deserve. You can also add candles, apply scented oil on your wrists, and have feel-good books by the bedside table. Stay away from stressing self-help books. Experts advise love/happiness poetry, fast food fiction, or even a diary. Keeping a diary is like befriending yourself. You can use an extra friend, right?

CHECK YOUR VENTILATION

Your pores fluctuate depending on the humidity of the area. If it’s cold, your pores will close. If it’s warm, your pores will open. The ventilation in your home should be just right so your pores will not be very overworked. Notice that when it’s too cold, your skin will also lack the moisture it needs. If your skin lacks moisture, when you get out of that cold area, your skin will overcompensate by producing more oil than usual. Yes, cold weather can breed unhealthy skin too.

If it’s also hot, your natural oils (moisture) will mix with your sweat. And that’s dangerous. Sweat is dirt. Oil WILL become dirt. The equation to acne is actually dead cells/dirt + oil. There are different ways to look young, but to fake teenage acne is surely not the way to go.

USE THE “MOST ORGANIC” TOILETRIES

Your skin is like a sponge. It absorbs all the things that are placed and applied to them.

It is important that you take note of the chemicals that you put on your skin. Read and analyze very carefully. Let’s say you use a facial wash, a toner, a moisturizer, and a face powder every day. Let’s also assume that each of these things contains 20 chemicals. (Actually, that’s a conservative approximate.

Take a peek at the pack of your facial wash and toners; they contain compounds which you almost cannot read.) So every day, excluding the chemicals that may get to your skin when you go out, you take in at least 80 kinds of chemicals on your skin. It sounds glaring, right? However, the effects are not seen abruptly.

The best that you can do is to choose your toiletries right. Choose the most “organic” cosmetics, soaps, lotions, etc. There are a lot of cosmetic / toiletry product lines in the market that swear to be hypo-allergenic, non-comedogenic (won’t clog your pores), and were not tested on animals. They may be a tad more expensive but trust me, they’re worth it.

Staying young involves more than just taking care of your skin and your body. Remember to also keep a happy and optimistic state-of-mind to compliment the glow you have on your face!

How to take in-home care for senior parents with Parkinson’s?

For many people, caring for a parent with Parkinson’s is very doable, especially in the early stages of the disease. While there’s no cure for Parkinson’s, there are many medications available that can ease the symptoms.
• Levodopa helps to make dopamine, and carbidopa in combination with levodopa helps to keep it from forming dopamine in the bloodstream until it reaches the brain.
• Anticholinergics can help with rigidity.
• Bradykinesia, bromocriptine, and ropinirole act to mimic dopamine in the brain.
• Physical therapy, which can be done in the home or at a gym, can also provide a great deal of relief from symptoms and can help maintain muscle mass.
Other, seemingly minor adjustments in the home can make life easier for a parent with Parkinson’s. You can rearrange the furniture to create a path for walking, which will help with slow movement and impaired balance. The furniture can be strategically placed to give your parent something to hold on to throughout the house. Tremors can be reduced by placing weight on the affected hand. Eating slowly and with small bites can help reduce issues with jaw stiffness while eating.